Significant Results

I attended several courses on web-based courses:

Web CT Introduction:  The course is offered through Leadership Valencia and highlights the structure of a course in Web CT.  During the Fall 2003 semester, I was asked to teach Patient Care Management online with Pat Woodbery.   I was able to begin working with Amy Eager and gain experience setting up the course.  During Spring of 2004, I was able to build Pharmacology for the Transition students in Web CT without assistance.  It was not terribly imaginative, but served its purpose in allowing students the freedom to access the course at any time.  They had one additional evening per week that they did not have to come to the campus. 

WebCT Online Seminar: Building and Using Cool Interactive Learning Objects for Online Courses:  The course was offered through the WebCT website.   It demonstrated how one could use learning objects to enhance teaching.   Learning objects are games and interactive techniques that allow the student to see their progress or animations that illustrate concepts.  As we move towards online testing and alternative format questions this knowledge will be quite valuable. 

All levels a of Front Page:  The course is offered through Leadership Valencia and I learned how to use this software to create web pages.  I been self taught and my website still needs some work, but this course helped me to design a more aesthetically pleasing site and easier to navigate (compare to before course)  It also introduced me to some shortcuts and tools in the program. 

I am scheduled to take a course in MacroMedia Flash which will teach me how to do simple animations. 

I have made use of Power Point in the classroom.  You can view the following power points:

Hypertension

Pain Medications

Antivirals & antitubercular

I have tried to maintain the guidelines for use of an effective Power Point presentation (http://education.umn.edu/tel/itfellows/power_point_design/index_design.htm)

• Keep cool colors as backgrounds, notice that most of my slides are blue with heavily contrasting type.  This calls the readers attention to the words, not the background. 
• Avoid all word slides, keeps the audience attention.
• Limit bullets to less than 6 words and bullets to less than 6 per page.  This keeps the reader from having to read every page.  Power points should highlight points and guide the lecturer, not be the lecture.  In some cases, I have broken this rule when I want the student to have the information. 
• Limit animations.  Too many animations or effects distract from the presentation.  If you want to call attention to something or wake up the audience this effect may be helpful.  Otherwise, animations such as flying in type and swirls can be detremental to the presentation.
• Consistency keeps people focused on the presentation, not on why did the font change?

During Spring of 2003, I implemented a web-enhanced activity for NUR 1141C.  The students were provided guidelines and go on a web search to find information for a drug and evaluate the reliability of the website.  I incorporated Judi Delisle's website for Internet Research.  Because lay people frequently do research on the internet, I believe it is imperative that nurses have some skills to evaluate the information available.   Much of the information out there is quite good but if nurses do not know what is reliable and what is not, they cannot guide their patients.  Most students once focused, really found this assignment helpful and did quite well.