Outcomes of Educational Technology

Serious Gaming
Gaming as a form of engagement in nursing education. This is not a new concept for learning because war games were used in the 1600s as mentioned in the article (Black, Merrill, Konzelmon, Williams, & Hart, 2015). The authors performed a study using serious games in the community health nursing content, more specifically public health and epidemiology. Instruction over the content was provided along with training on how to navigate the games and the students were to play the games outside of the face-to-face environment (on their own-in other words). After the students completed the games they were to write reflectively. Outcomes of the study include enhanced student recall, ability to apply knowledge, critical thinking, increased student engagement in learning, and increased student monitoring of their own learning (Black et al., 2015). Gamification: An innovative teaching-learning strategy for the digital nursing students in a community health course is a great article and I found myself looking into the games to find out more information and how I could use these games in my own community health content.

Day-Black, C., Merrill, E. B., Konzelman, L., Williams, T. T., & Hart, N. (2015).
Gamification: An Innovative Teaching-Learning Strategy for the Digital Nursing Students in a Community Health Nursing Course. ABNF Journal, 26(4), 90-94.


The Neighborhood: A virtual learning neighborhood
A virtual community in nursing education. The study involved 248 students who utilized a virtual neighborhood made up of 40 characters, 11 households, and 4 health care agencies. The data analysis was conducted using tTest and ANOVA-older students (over 24 years of age) had greater preferences of the neighborhood, students from the main campus found the character stories more interesting and helped them better understand patient conditions, students from the distant site used the neighborhood more often and also found the concepts relating to the course concepts (Giddens, Shuster, & Roehrig, 2010). Outcomes include connecting previous learning with virtual experience signifying a deeper learning (Giddens, Shuster, & Roehrig, 2010). Although there is not much research out in virtual neighborhoods this is an area open for research and use for applying knowledge in nursing programs. The future of technology in healthcare education has room for incorporating gaming, virtual reality technology, and other sources of simulation style capabilities. I look forward to what the future holds in these areas and I will be using these technologies in my classes.

Giddens, J., Shuster, G., & Roehrig, N. (2010). Early student outcomes associated with a virtual community for learning. Journal Of Nursing Education, 49(6), 355-358 4p. doi:10.3928/01484834-20100217-03 The link: Early student outcomes associated with a virtual community for learning