Last Three Weeks in the lab

Wow! The quarter has flown by!!! I can hardly believe my first quarter of the PhD in Instructional Technology is almost behind me! I have decided to combine the last three weeks of lab into one post as they ran together and due to final exam weeks and student appointments my lab time was scattered about due to needed interruptions. I imagine this is not unlike what I need to expect with working with technology. There are always going to be interruptions. Life becomes and interesting challenge by keeping you on your toes and not letting you know what is next all the time. I will summarize my experiences for the past three weeks now.

            I had time to quickly learn the way to configure the smart board. I was instructed to configure it weekly. It was like playing a game of tick tack toe. Oh, an exciting thing I thought was that I can make it move with the touch of a finger on the board, you don’t have to necessarily use the fake markers and erasers that were provided. I am able to flip and scroll very quickly. I have also demonstrated our web based nursing charting program, nurse squared to a large number and variety of people. I completed many tours in the lab, including 2 entire classes of freshman pre-nursing students. It was fun. I am getting so excited to offer our lab to the students!
             I was able to have a private lunch meeting with the Dean of our college and share some of my ideas for technology use here at Ohio University and my desires for incorporating them into the lab. He seems to be very supportive of our program and the potential we offer to the college of a whole. Nursing is a growing field and with the advancements we are making, the possibilities are endless. The six live mannequins are fully operational. I was able to have the Laradal representative come into the lab and show me a few things that I was not aware of with them. We are also getting the new 3G Sim man. He is unique. I hope to get to know him throughout next quarter.
            Another fun thing I got to do was assist (in a small way) with migrating to Microsoft exchange. I had done this before but this time we added it to the favorite bars and assisted people with finding out how to add Microsoft exchange to the Iphone. There are many potential uses for the Iphone.
            I assisted a college with setting up how to access blackboard on her Iphone. She can now access her courses online by logging into the system on her mobile device. I have the ability to input grades through my mobile device and now so does she. We can both now respond to student emails in a very fast fashion as the phone is set to make a noise when the emails is received.
            I held a few sessions of informal training on our nurse squared program. We had the two male nurse designers of the program come and speak with us and offer a formal training session to available staff and for those who could not make it to the training I am trying to educate them on its use. I have had many questions from inside the school of nursing as well as from visiting parents, nurses and dignitaries that have visited.  It is a different experience knowing something about the technology we use except for what I would have to know to get things done. Technology is a lot like nursing: you can get by with working the program or completing an assessment on a patient but until you actually understand what the program is for and who and why it was created just as you need to have the understanding of what and why things are occurring in the body to do the best that you possibly can.
            The computers in my lab are very clean and are disinfected daily after the end of the usage. I feel that especially in a nursing lab we need to keep it as clean as possible. Oh, I almost forgot I had to move a computer to a different station and get it set up all by myselfJ. Someone had needed a computer and the computer gurus from our college had stolen one of mineL. I came in and was getting prepared to show the lab and realized I was missing a computer. They had tried to be slick and left the monitor for me but thankfully I noticed prior to the group getting there for their tour. I pulled one from a different mannequin that I was not planning on using at that time.
            Overall, I have enjoyed this lab experience and am starting to feel less of a nurse out of the water and more of a nurse bobbing in the water with head out! I am learning so much. I am looking forward to another quarter of excitement… next year.

Week 5 in the lab

Week 5 in the lab I asked for an allowance of time to work in the Nursing Simulation Lab in Grover. My instructors were gracious enough to allow me to do so. This was a challenge that would continue for several more weeks. There were mannequin parts in boxes, stashes of supplies hidden everywhere that needed addressed and most excitedly a SMART board that needed to be put together.  I was able to make arrangements with the computer guys in Grover to assist with the SNART board installation.

Our first task was to get it out of the box. Don’t laugh; it was packed in their tight! We were able to get it out. It was interesting to note that no one looked at the directions once we got it out of the box. There were three to four of us working at all times on this. It was a sight to see, or at least some people thought it was as there was a continuously growing crowd hanging out across the walk way peering in our window as we worked.  We figured out how to run the cords and get the plastic parts of the device installed. I didn’t get to help with the power toolsL. However, once the device was put up on the wall and the ceiling I was able to assist with hooking the cords all up. We then had to figure out how to get the computer and the smart boards running off of the same machine, it was not happening. We had to install another computer within the casing of the first one. We then had to set the screens on one and two so that there would be a reflection of the information to get the SMART board working correctly. I then loaded the software for the smart board and was able to turn it on for the first time.

There were a few extra parts (mostly screws, and a few nuts and bolts) remaining. I was a little nervous about that but was assured that there was nothing to worry about. However, problems did not escape us. We were not able to get het screen reflecting on the board as large as the board. We continue to have about a two inch border that remains white on the board. On a positive note, we are seeing the entire computer screen at one time. We completed the touch test and followed the multiple bullet points on the screen to be sure it worked correctly and I received instructions that I should calibrate the SMART board every week. This was a great lab day. I feel like I got a lot accomplished and really learned a lot about the SMART board. I am looking forward to next week to gain a n understanding of how it works and what all the capabilities are.

My messy lab!                                                                             

Me trying to read the directiond and fix our border problem.

                                                                                     

Day 4 in the lab

My 4^th day in the lab was a little less challenging. I went with the graduate student to set up printers. That was a very quick experience due to they were already set up when we arrived. Apparently, there was a glitch in the system prior to us arriving but when we printed a test page it miraculously printed. I am not at all saying that the graduate student wasn’t doing something right; I am saying that I am learning that technology does often have a mind of its own.

            The swiffer was my little helper today. I cleaned the keyboards in the second computer room today. I also had the paper towels out and was trying to remove built up yucky germs off of the computer keys. I also cleaned the handles on some of the chairs. By the end of lab, I felt like I needed debugged as well (smiling). I have heard people say “once a nurse, always a nurse” and I am sure that is very true.

My final excitement of the day involved showing a student how to print from the computer lab. She wanted a color copy as well as some black and white copies. I walked her through the steps and she was able to complete her tasks.

I am attaching a picture I took at another facility when I was on a tour. Perhaps OU could consider developing a station similar to this for our labs. It is flu season and we do not want to spread germs.