Monday, July 6, 2015

Unit 4: Current Educational Technology

Unit 4
Current Educational Technology
As an educator, I was extremely happy when surfing the internet to find resources that talk about the targeted websites.  The reason behind this happiness is the amount of support, services, resources that both Educause Atomic Leaning websites are offering.  Here is a summary of what I learned about the aforementioned websites.
Educause
Educause is a nonprofit association that serves the society by advancing higher education through the use of information technology. Their core mission can be achieved through helping those who lead, manage, and use information technology to shape strategic IT decisions at every level within higher education (Educause. n.d.). Their membership network includes more than 1,800 colleges/ universities and over 300 corporations.
 I found my first article by searching for recent English language articles with the word “Educause” in combination with the term “nursing education”. The title of this article is “Are mashups useful for nursing education?” In this article Skiba (2007) highlighted that Educause has launched an innovative electronic technology that can upgrade the learning experience to the next level. Mashups is the name of this technology by which internet regular users can combine different application tools to create a new product. Her is an applicable example in nursing education. An educator can use Mashups that Educause has launched to teach students about for example Nightingale’s work in the Crimean war.  By using Mashups student can learn in an interactive fashion about Nightingale’s work through combining Google Maps and Nightingale’s pictures gallery.  The final product would be a picture gallery of her work displayed on map of London while music from the Victorian period plays in the background.
The second article title is “nursing faculty and use of web 2.0”.  In which Davison, Naguszewski, Piasta, Siler, & Ware (2013) highlighted another learning technology that  Educause  has lunched.  This learning technology is web 2.0. Web 2.0 is an interactive social web application that allow users to share, create, collaborate, and/or publish web-based content. These tools include, but are not limited to, blogs, podcasts, tagging, wikis, and social bookmarks accessed by using personal computers (PC) and mobile devices; such as a personal digital assistants (PDA) or smart phones.  In their study they concluded that survey data indicated nursing faculty utilization of Web 2.0 tools was beneficial, however these tools are not used to their full potential. Findings of this study support the need for nursing faculty to become knowledgeable and savvy consumers of Web 2.0 tools.
Atomic Leaning
Atomic leaning is a specialized organization that offer a wide spectrum of learning technologies to customers.  Atomic leaning organization’s customers are institutions that offer K-12 education, higher education, and global education.  Atomic leaning organization providers its customer’s with high-quality solutions that are helpful in making a meaningful use of technology to impact teaching, learning and life.  Atomic leaning organization has the tools to develop and deliver quality training and development solutions that empower learners globally.  Focusing more on higher education, Atomic leaning organization offers Online training for hundreds of software applications to meet the needs of today’s campus support faculty, staff, and students with training resources that help simplify instruction and learning.
Here is a virtual campus map that on it you can see the diversity of technologies that Atomic leaning organization offer in the world of higher education.

Reference
Atomic learning.(n.d.).Higher education. Retrieved from  http://www.atomiclearning.com/highed
Davison, D., Naguszewski, T., Piasta, M., Siler, B., & Ware, L. J. (2013). Nursing faculty and use of web 2.0. Journal of Nursing Education and Practice, 3(8), 13. Retrieved from http://search.proquest.com/docview/1513225016?accountid=458
Educause. (n.d.). Who we areRetrieved from http://www.educause.edu/about

Skiba, D. J. (2007). Nursing education 2.0: Are mashups useful for nursing education? Nursing Education Perspectives, 28(5), 286-8. Retrieved from http://search.proquest.com/docview/236635225?accountid=458

9 comments:

  1. Hi, Sadeq. I enjoyed reading your posting about Educause and Atomic learning. I feel like both of these resources are invaluable to faculty. I found the mashup information you provided very interesting. A majority of the students are more engaged when implementing technology into classes since we live in the age of technology.

    Did you know that Educause hosts an annual conference in October this year? The conference focuses on networking opportunities and many topic offerings over the conference period. The best thing about this is that you can attend in person or connect virtually.

    I also like the faculty development opportunities that are offered through Atomic Learning. This resource also offers many online training activities and videos.

    Thanks for providing such great information.

    Rachel

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    1. Thank you Dr.Mack for informing us about Educause annual conference. If any one in our group is interested, this conference will be held in October 27-30/2015 Indianapolis/Indiana.Here is the conference hyperlink
      http://www.educause.edu/annual-conference
      Thank you
      V/r,
      Sadeq AL-Fayyadh

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    2. I didn't think about including the link, Sadeq. Thank you. I have put it on my calendar and would like to attend. I am sure it will be very beneficial and I will learn new information that I can integrate into my current teaching.

      Rachel

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  2. Thank you for sharing about the conference. I had forgot about it. I also enjoyed learning about "mashup". I had heard the term but not a description.Great postings.

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    1. Dr.Frutchey, thank you for choosing such important topics to be the focus of our discussions. Such topics add important tools to our instructional design toolbox!
      Thank you
      V/r,
      Sadeq AL-Fayyadh

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  3. Sadeq, you highlighted such an interesting term “Mashups.” In fact, this is my first time I hear and read about the term Mashups. In the recent time, nursing students are considered as a net generation or “information technology native” who are provided with more opportunities than old generations in terms of technology availability and the shift in the learning interests. Therefore, changing the learning process from the traditional way to internet-based learning has become necessary to achieve the learning demands of the new generation. The change in the learning process may not be easy; therefore, faculty members are required to develop methods that can grab students’ attention to the content of the course. The use of Mashups is one of the methods that can be applied to achieve the expected learning outcome. Nursing educators can combine variety of learning applications in one website; Mashups can also be a multiple websites combines in one website, which makes it a rich technology-based source of information that students can access and learn (Dang, 2013).
    Group members, After I searched related information about how to create Mashups I found this website interesting to share http://www.weebly.com. This website helps you create your own Mashups for free and can be managed through desktop or mobile devise.

    In regard to Atomic Learning, I found that it is a comprehensive learning website that is designed to meet the needs of all the community including educators, students, and staff. It is designed to simplify instruction and learning. The online training and support is available at any time to ensure that technology is fully utilized by people. The link below explains everything about Atomic Learning in just 2 minutes. https://edshelf.com/tool/atomic-learning/

    Reference:
    Dang, J.(2013). The use of mashup in nursing education: A lesson on poverty. Retrieved from https://prezi.com/xabh8tqnrcjc/the-use-of-mashup-in-nursing-education-a-lesson-on-poverty/

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  4. Hi Sadeq
    Sadeq, you mentioned a great point about the significant role of Atomic website in training process. I agree with you concerning that. When I search the Atomic website, I find many tutorial training classes for different software programs. In addition, this website provides the educators with various educational tool and extra clarification about using other technology within teaching strategy. For instance, I find in Atomic website a training session about using Inspiration 9 program, which is used in creation of visual map or in other words creation of concept map. I am really interested when I watch series of videos about that. Training is an important for the educators in order to learn what is new in technology and how they can invest this certain technology in nursing education.

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