This week I used Audacity for the first time. It was easy an easy program to use for audio recording. The challenge for me was with adding the recording to the post. My reflections about Audacity are included in the following recording:

https://soundcloud.com/darlene-burke/audacity-for-pot

Patient Andy

The educational intervention for my dissertation study began with this picture of patient Andy displayed on a screen while I told a story about Andy and Andy’s nurse. For this study, the desired learner outcomes from the use of storytelling as a teaching strategy were to engage the study participants (which were nursing students), evoke an emotional response, and facilitate critical reflection. And although the picture was obtained from the Internet and the patient’s name was fictitious, using a picture of a patient with obvious injuries, giving the patient a name, and telling a story that provided background about the patient, helped to “make it real” for the participants, set the stage for remainder of the educational module, and meet desired learner outcomes. An interesting observation that I made was that the students continued to look at patient Andy during the time I gave them to critically reflect on the story.

Faculty who teach f2f courses can learn from the successes of online instructors who use images to tell a story…………just as I did. Similarly, online faculty can learn from one another about the science of digital storytelling and more importantly the art of digital storytelling.

Here is another picture of a patient which was found at http://tcktcktck.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/07/public-health-doctor-CC-World-Bank-Photo-collection2013.jpg

Hi! My name is Darlene Burke, and I am a returning POT learner. Last semester, I learned a lot about online course design and pedagogy, as well as the use of technology to promote learning in the online environment. My overarching goal for this semester is to become more comfortable and competent with the use of technology. Since I recently completed my doctoral work (Hooray!!), my brain should be more receptive to learning POT-related material.

I have been teaching at MiraCosta College as adjunct faculty in nursing since retiring from the U.S. Navy in 2006. This semester my teaching assignments include f2f group tutoring for all four semesters of students in the RN program and facilitation of an f2f medical terminology course. Sometime in the near future, I hope to convert the medical terminology course from f2f to a hybrid. However, at the end of last semester, I found it interesting that not one student in the class said that they would have liked for the course, or part of the course, to be provided online. Although I cannot say definitively, I believe that the students felt this way because they “bonded” during group exercises and really loved their role-playing assignment.

I look forward to getting to know the new POT learners, reconnecting with returning POT learners, and working with the fabulous POT faculty!