Environmental Scan
Mode of Teaching
I teach in a face-to-face mode for theory courses and in clinical settings where students are evaluated on their care of residents. They evaluate themselves within specific guidelines and then the instructor appraises their care giving skills on a mastery/non-mastery basis. I am one of the instructors in the program which has not been offered online to date. I hope some of it will be available online in the future. It has worked well at some other universities.
Assistance is offered by the student services for writing assignments and the learning centre for help with assignments and language skills. A large number of our students have English as a second language and, while they can often write quite clearly, many have difficulty with pronunciation of English and medical words.
Due to limits regarding administration and security, it is impossible to access some programs I would like to demonstrate in the face-to-face classroom. The computers in the e-classrooms are regulated as far as downloading programs unless it is done by IET or an administrator.
Resources and Professional Development Available to Instructors
Instructors at Kwantlen Polytechnic University (KPU) use Key cards or access cards to be able to access the Kwantlen Polytechnic University Library, print room and other areas designated as instructor only sites.
Online magazines, videos and websites available for use in the various healthcare programs such as the Canadian Nurse (CNA.com), CINAHL, a research data base for nursing and medical information found at https://health.ebsco.com/products/cinahl-with-full-text/allied-health-nursing), lynda.com which provides access to information of all kinds both medical and non-medical and they provide entrée to courses.
Moodle.com is another program or we use generally as a learning management system (LMS) to provide websites, assignment information and links to videos, etc. It can be used to create forums for the students to discuss their learning and topics of interest in the course. I have recently added www.powtoon.com
so they can enjoy making presentations for their fellow learners; Wevideo, https://www.wevideo.com/
where they can create videos again, the make presentations for their classmates.
The Information and Educational Technology Department (IET) is the support system we have for the computers, difficulties with Moodle and security for e-mail and other online problems. We, the faculty, apparently have phishing and other problems on our e-mail sites at least four or five times a day. IET does a good job informing us of these problems and what we should be aware of.
They have deposited a number of links they recommend on the IET site to make it easier for us to access some information we need for our students. The following is a list of the available links IET has provided for both faculty and students alike:
- Firefox recommended – available here
Internet Explorer 11 for Windows 7 – available here
- http://www.openoffice.org/
- Fox it PDF Reader – to open and read pdf documents. Download Foxit Reader
- Adobe Flash Player – for viewing animated web content. Download Flash Player
- IrfanView – a free viewer and basic editor for image files. Download IrfanView
- FLV Player – for viewing multimedia files. Download FLV Player
- Windows Media Player – for viewing multimedia files. Download Media Player
- QuickTime Player – for viewing multimedia files. Download Quicktime
- AVG antivirus (free one-month trial) Download AVG
- MalwareBytes – used to remove malware. Download Malwarebytes
- Microsoft Security Essentials – used in Windows 7 or above along with an antivirus program.Download Security Essentials
I have not tried all of the links but I will in the future.
Resources Available to Students
Students have access to Smart Phones, Laptops, Ipads and other sources of technology. Many of the use Google products and e-mail to communicate with each other as well as the links I mentioned above.
There are many different forms of online learning available at KPU. One program is the Bachelor of Science –Post Baccalaureate program. (BSNPB). These are learners who already have a baccalaureate in a related field and wish to add a Bachelor of Nursing (BSN) degree. They work independently in an online program on laptops provided by the university in a synchronous format and come to the university to do intense periods of work with SIMS and in clinical settings.
Another form of online learning is offered through the Learning Resources Network or LERN. I was unable to learn much about the specific courses they offer but it is one more method of providing opportunities for learning.
Hardware Available to the Students
Students have access, as stated above, to Smart Phones, scanners, iPods etc. They use these constantly to access websites, e-mail and so on. They have developed their own Facebook page to share information, class related videos and collaborative assignment/meeting information.
Computer Software Available to Students
The software to which students have access is varied:
- Prezi
- Wevideo
- Powtoons
- Google Drive
- Google Scholar
They will use any of these as well as other sites for keeping in touch with each other, collaborating on assignments and contacting friends.
Technical and Pedogogical Support
KPU has developed various links and policies for certain aspects of pedagogy. I have included links to some of the policies and papers about pedagogy and activism
http://www.kpu.ca/cgme/pedagogy-liberation-activism and a PowerPoint presentation regarding First Nations pedagogy. The link is below.