Wow! This quarter has flown by! I can barely believe that we are in the finals week of spring quarter essentially ending my first year as a PhD student. I have had many wonderful learning experiences this quarter in my practicum. Actually, I was so busy with learning that I have not made regular postings to this blog throughout the quarter so I will be compressing the events from this quarter into this final blog posting.
We (meaning Sue and I) started out the quarter with a presentation to our classmates and professors of the Simulation lab. We were able to demonstrate what we do on a day to day basis related to using Simulation Mannequins as a learning tool for our nursing students. There is a lot of technology going on in the field of nursing; however there does not seem to be a lot of nurses going into technology.
The equipment we demonstrated included the Vital Sims mannequins. We showed how one could listen to heart, lung and bowel sounds of a mannequin. The VitalSim mannequins also have a very small vocabulary and are able to answer simple yes/ no type of questions. We then proceeded to show our class our IV hepatic system. Through the use of simulation, our students are able to initiate IV starts on a computer in our lab prior to starting IVs on each other. This system is highly advanced and the US military also uses it as a training tool.
Our final piece of technology we demonstrated use of was the SimMan 3G. We are very excited to be the first school in Southeastern Ohio to have one. He has capabilities to speak, hear and interact with a conversation. If you are mean to him, he will cry. His nose will run if he gets a cold. If he falls and hits his head he can have a cerebral spinal fluid leak from his ears. His mouth can produce white frothy foam if he is unable to breath or has a seizure. If his bladder gets to full, he can urinate on you or if you need to obtain a urine specimen you can place a catheter into the bladder to drain it. He does have two types of seizures and if you are really nice to him he may blink at you. He is really a fascinating piece of technology.
My favorite thing this quarter was attending the workshops that my peers held. I learned so much at these sessions that I can actually apply to my learning and teaching. I have thus used a few Prezi’s and placed drop box on my iPhone! I have learned about many collaboration tools that I am planning on implementing into my courses in the future.
My presentation, along with my classmate Sue, was to demonstrate the Smart Board. We had a different type of assignment. We were instructed to develop our presentation for a group of sociology students who would be going into the schools to teach seventh through twelfth grade sociology. My part involved the demo on how to use the tools and white board. Sue crated a power point on the requested material and demoed the use of the Smart board through h the teaching of the power point. We created and administered a pre and posttest for this project.
I am sad to see this portion of my student career pass me by but at the same time, I am happy to be moving on. I am looking forward to learning about as many more technologies as I possibly can. I am developing a true passion for this field and always trying to think of ways that I can incorporate the use of some of these technologies into my field of nursing.
