Nursing Assignment: Incorporating Technology in Community-Based Learning

We live in a world in which we need to share responsibility. It's easy to say "It's not my child, not my community, not my world, not my problem." Then there are those who see the need and respond. I consider those people my heroes.

-Mr. Rogers, American educator and television host

Nurses hold great power both inside and outside of clinical settings. Patients and communities rely on nurses for information, care, and strategic leadership. As such, nurse educators must equip their students with the knowledge, skills and attitudes necessary for successful interactions with local and global communities. Since bridging the gap between academia and authentic experience can be difficult to accomplish inside the classroom, many universities have incorporated service learning into their curriculum. Service learning, a type of experiential learning, allows nursing students to collaborate with geographic (location-based) and functional (health-based) communities. Many times, this collaboration allows nursing students to examine the external factors that are impacting patient education and health. Technology, a generally positive external factor, has had an increased emphasis in these service learning experiences.

In this Discussion, you use the scenario provided below to imagine that you are involved with a service learning project that uses technology to address community-based learning needs.

Scenario:

This semester, you are taking a course that has a service learning component. During the first week of the class, you selected your community-based population and eagerly set out to make a difference. Over the next few weeks, you interacted with patients and documented their medical questions and health concerns. You also met with nursing professionals to hear their accounts of working with this specific community of patients. Upon personal reflection, you have noticed that not only has your empathy for this community increased but so has your awareness and self-confidence. As you come closer to the end of your semester and thus your final project, you meet with your instructor to discuss expectations. Your instructor acknowledges your hard work and commends you for the reputation that you have built in such a short amount of time. She feels that you have really become close to this community and as such, would like your final project to be a PowerPoint presentation that highlights the learning needs of the community. In your presentation, she would like you to incorporate a technology that could be adopted into a new community-based program. As you thank your instructor for the opportunity, she hands you a document that outlines your PowerPoint expectations.

Please Address this in my paper:

1. Reflect on the health-centered learning needs of patients in your community, communities with which you are familiar, or communities abroad. Consider not only patients grouped by geographic location, but also those that represent a functional community, such as expectant mothers or patients with breast cancer or muscular dystrophy.

2. Reflect on the mobile applications and social networking sites you have used for both personal and professional reasons. How might these technologies help to address patient learning needs?

3. Select either a geographic community or functional community to further investigate.

4. Using the websites in this week's Learning Resources and your own scholarly research, identify specific learning needs of your selected community of patients. The learning need that you select might be associated with a health concern, preventative care practices, health management, or basic patient education.

5. Browse the Internet to select a mobile application, social networking site, or other technology that might be appropriate for your patient community. Once selected, save pictures, videos, and/or capture screenshots that highlight the benefits of this technology.

6. Review the section Guidelines for PowerPoint in Chapter 8 of the Herrman course text.

7. Describe how you would construct a PowerPoint that explains the following:

a. Learning needs of the community, as well as their relevance (i.e. why does this matter? Why should patients and nurses care to address this learning need?)

b. A mobile application (i.e. handheld tablet or smart phone) or social media website that could help to address this need and why

c. Suggestions for using this technology

d. Any concerns or potential problems that might be associated with this technology

e. Follow-up activities to increase the success of patient/nurse integration into daily activities.

8. A description of the community-based population and associated learning need that you selected.

Required Readings

Bradshaw, M. J., & Lowenstein, A. J. (2014). Innovative teaching strategies in nursing and related health professions (6th ed.). Sudbury, MA: Jones and Bartlett.

· Chapter 28, "Service Learning"

This chapter overviews the three components of service learning: meeting community needs, students' learning objectives, and forma reflection of the experience.

· Chapter 29, "Study Abroad as a Strategy for Nursing Education: A Case Study"

Study abroad programs immerse nursing students in a variety of diverse cultures. This chapter describes how one nursing school created and maintained a successful study abroad program.

Herrman, J. W. (2016). Creative teaching strategies for the nurse educator (2nd ed.). Philadelphia, PA: F. A. Davis Company.

· Chapter 10, "Conclusion" (pp. 323-330)

Chapter 10 provides a few final thoughts on integrating creative teaching strategies into the classroom.

Optional Resources

Websites to assist you with your presentation

Bates Information & Library Service. (2011). PowerPoint: Presentation tips. Retrieved from http://www.bates.edu/ils/2011/how-do-i/software/powerpoint-presentation-tips/

MightyCoach.com. (n.d.). Adding notes to your PowerPoint slides. Retrieved February 21, 2013, from http://www.mightycoach.com/articles/powerpoint/ch3-notes.html

This website provides a brief tutorial for adding notes to PowerPoint slides.

Microsoft. (2013b). Basic tasks for creating a PowerPoint 2013 presentation. Retrieved from http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/powerpoint-help/basic-tasks-for-creating-a-powerpoint-2013-presentation-HA102809627.aspx

This website provides screen shots and step-by-step instructions for adding speaker notes to your PowerPoint presentation.

Websites to assist you in research

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. (n.d.). Retrieved January 29, 2013, from http://www.cdc.gov/

At this website, you can investigate various health statistics broken down by regions of the United States. For example, if you select Data & Statistics under the heading Health & Safety Topics, this will bring you to a webpage that presents a wide range of health topics, which you can then select to view data on the regional, state, gender, age, and ethnic percentages whom are impacted by this health topic.

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. (n.d.). Morbidity and mortality weekly report (MMWR). Retrieved January 29, 2013, from http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/international/relres.html

At the CDC's Morbidity and Mortality webpage, you can select any region or state that you would like to further investigate. These links take you directly to your selected state's Department of Health website, allowing you to explore health services of any community within that state.

Google Earth. (n.d.). Retrieved January 29, 2013 from http://www.google.com/earth/index.html

National Historical Geographic Information System. (n.d.). Retrieved January 29, 2013, from https://www.nhgis.org/