Blended Educational Way By Use of Simulator In Distant Education In Nursing

Use of Simulator In Distant Education In Nursing as Blended Educational Way

Recorded Videos for Operating Simulator In Distant Learning,The Blended Approach By The Use of Simulator In Distant Learning,Simulator as Educational Instrument in Distant Learning.

Recorded Videos for Operating Simulator In Distant Learning

    Commercial CD-ROM programs designed to teach various skills and nursing concepts have emerged over the years. These products are typically two dimensional, providing information to the learner in a convenient, accessible mode because the learner can review the content in class, at home, or in the learning laboratory. CD-ROMs are similar to videotapes; However, they include the capacity for learner interaction, producing active rather than passive learning.

    More sophisticated products have been developed for nursing educators that include high fidelity patient simulators. Nurse educators are now using patient simulators to provide students with practical experience in more realistic clinical settings. 

    With the high fidelity mannequins, the learner can hear heart and breath sounds, visualize an arrhythmia on a heart monitor, and palpate pulses. This experiential learning method is bringing more realism to the instruction and also elevating the learning experience to promote problem solving and decision making skills. 

The Blended Approach By The Use of Simulator In Distant Learning

    A new model of education arises when the two instructional strategies, use of technology and simulated learning, are married. No longer does the student have to be in a laboratory setting to practice assessment skills or drive many thousands on a given day to achieve recertification of a skill or practice the technique of performing a 12-lead ECG or suturing an abdominal wound. Combining the Internet and the use of simulated learning offers great potential learning experiences to students of this generation.

    At the University of California, Davis School of Medicine and Medical Center, students are getting the opportunity to practice invasive procedures that are complex skill intensive via simulation (Thacker, 2004). 

    Students currently perform the angioplasty and stent procedure on a patient simulator in a controlled lab setting; However, in the future they could perform the same procedure using a haptic device, with the program being accessed via the Internet. Simulations accessed from a website are very important to nursing education today. 

    For example, one website teaches the learner about 12-lead ECGs and how to interpret cardiac rhythms (Lindsey, 2004); another teaches learners about lung sounds (McGill University, nd). In the very recent past, clinical faculty would search high and low for a patient who had abnormal breathing sounds, with only a few students then being able to gather around the patient for the learning experience. 

    These Web sites with the simulated ECG and lung sounds now provide educators with consistent, high-quality content for this type of instruction. In addition to these selected Web sites that demonstrate teaching via the computer and Internet, there are a variety of instructional strategies on the Web for students to access and use to enhance their knowledge.

    There are also faculty-made CD-ROMS that can be used to supplement course materials. Wound assessment (Ross & Tuovinen, 2001), 12-lead ECGs (Jeffries et al., 2003), and cardiovascular aspects of nursing (Sternberg & Meyer, 2001) are available to provide experiential simulated learning to students. 

    In Web courses, CD-ROMS are often provided for the learner to access the skill or a link is designed to connect the content to the learning of the material to provide more interactive learning experiences in the lesson.

    Medical and nursing schools as well as major health care organizations are maintaining extensive websites for learning, references, and assessment information (Parvati et al., 2002). Continuing medical and nursing education on the Internet is commonly available and a widely used service of practitioners. 

    In one such case, the learning of anatomy and surgery is being taught for surgical interns via the Internet using a visual hepatic audio experience. Simulated environments are delivering the experience to the next generation of students in new innovative technological-enhanced learning environments.

    Realistic simulations of tissue deformation and similar problems encountered in surgery are being delivered over a server with one gigabyte of memory and transmitted from the Internet to the user's workstation (Parvati et al., 2002). Interactive tools and collaborative software have been developed for this method of teaching and learning. 

    Students can use a virtual tool (forceps) to pull on and distort a simulated model of an aorta within a model of an abdomen. The possibilities for manipulation and interaction within the program are phenomenal and promote a new, sophisticated type of teaching and learning.

    The blend of technological advances and simulated learning is in the embryonic stage of delivery and use in the health care settings. For now, these innovative strategies are being used despite little evaluation data or evidence of optimal learning outcomes.

Simulator as Educational Instrument in Distant Learning 

    A wide range of simulation technologies have become ubiquitous in the education and ongoing training of nurses and other health professionals. These technologies allow educators to develop effective and efficient strategies to teach decision making and clinical skills to diverse groups of students in complex simulated patient situations. Simulation is a strategy to engage students in active learning, which can be a significant challenge for students enrolled in programs of study that are “delivered” at a distance. 

    Initially, educators may resist use of simulation technologies because they may seem to create more work. Simulation does require one to consider the goals, the strategies needed to achieve the goals, and a method to evaluate whether or not goals were met.

    Simulation as both a teaching-learning strategy and an approach to assessment has the advantage of actively engaging learners as individuals or as group members. Although usually thought of as an enhancement to clinical experience, simulation allows many clinical programs to be offered at a distance because it allows for a common, standardized way to assess all learners similarly, wherever they may be located. 

    Although there has been an ever increasing demand for distance education, hybrid or blended approaches to education developed and are responsive to consumers need for closeness and flexibility while allowing an objective way to assess experiential learning. Successful use of simulation, like successful distance education, requires a commitment on behalf of both the educators and the learners.