Nursing 785: Pharmacotherapeutics for Nurse Prescribing is a 30 point paper  that introduces nurses to pharmaco-therapeutic principles and the process of therapeutic reasoning as preparation to becoming nurse prescribers. The course is challenging and co-ordinator Gigi Lim has worked with the LTU to use several technologies to ensure students are fully engaged with and understanding the key concepts as they are presented through the course.  

Gigi was particularly interested to see that nurses could articulate their understanding of therapeutic reasoning and could elicit the right information from patients and colleagues from different disciplines. So one of the assignments in the course is a group task where students are asked to consider multiple roles in a scenario and collaboratively write a mock theatrical script/dialogue for an episode in ‘Shortland Street’.

In 2014 and 2015 Gigi used the Student Pages option in Coursebuilder which enabled her to place students into groups and give each group editable access to their own pages on the course website where they could collaboratively develop and present their final scripts. They were then able to also self assess their contribution on the same pages and Gigi was able to provide feedback regarding their writing as a group - but also see their individual contributions.

In 2016 Gigi may well get her students to use Google Docs for this task as Google Docs is the collaborative writing tool embedded in Canvas. 

Students need to be motivated to discuss and debate. This means they have to be interested in the learning, connected with one another and connected with the teacher. There are a range of strategies to achieve these aims:

• As a teacher, be present in online discussion forums and active in debates.
• Choose authentic and relevant topics for debate.
• Make sure that students clearly understand how the discussion relates to the learning outcomes.
• Set tasks that require collaboration.
• Link discussion and collaboration to assessment.

There are a number of online discussion tools 'out there' but the University's  Learning Management System, Canvas provides an integrated system for class discussions, allowing both instructors and students to start and contribute to as many discussion topics as desired. Discussions can also be created as an assignment for grading purposes (and seamlessly integrated with the Canvas Gradebook), or simply serve as a forum for topical and current events. Discussions can also be created within student groups. See this page in the Canvas Guides for more details. 

To get started you'll need to log into Canvas, select a course that you are teaching and then select the 'Discussion' feature from the left hand navigation menu.

What support is available to me?

For FMHS staff our direct contact for Canvas support is Sophie An s.an@auckland.ac.nz

But Canvas offers its own online guides which are generally the best place to start: 

Canvas Guides – search the 'official' Canvas guides for any information you need.

Canvas Community – ask the global community of Canvas users a question. 

For information about the implementation of Canvas at the University see - Canvas at the University of Auckland

There is also 24-hour support for Canvas

Online live chat – select ‘Chat with Canvas Support’ from the Help menu in Canvas

Canvas Support Hotline – call 0800 001469 from a landline or mobile to speak with a Canvas Support representative

Short for 'weblog', a blog can most easily be described as a web-based diary or personal journal. Blogs began as personal diaries but they are increasingly being used in education, particularly to enable students to post reflections on learning, personal opinions, or keep a log of learning activity.

Blog posting generally invites a diary-style of writing or more personal reflecting or opining on a situation, scenario or issue. Posts are usually archived by date. They are designed to be interactive, allowing others to post comments about the blog entries. Most blogs allow for easy upload of images, video and sound files. and most allow for postings from a mobile device so contributions can be made  'anywhere anytime'. 

This clip Blogs in Plain English provides a clear explanation of blogs:

Blogs are useful if you are wanting to - or if you want your students to:

• Share thoughts, ideas, opinions, images, video, links to other online resources;
• Reflect upon their learning / comment on others' reflections;
• Develop and share an online knowledge base throughout a course; and
• Develop ideas for the purpose of receiving formative feedback.

Blogs can be used by individuals or groups as an easy way of 'putting ideas out there' and receiving feedback. They are easy to set up and students are generally familiar with them.

There are many third party blog services available on the web. Blogger - owned by Google - has been around since 1999 and is a reliable blogging service. WordPress is another well known blogging service and can be found at www.wordpress.com

Canvas does not include a dedicated blog tool of its own. However you can set up Canvas Assignments to accept blog postings by setting the 'Submission type' to Online then choosing the Website URL option for submission.  Students would need to be instructed to make their blog posts in the third party tool but at the time of submission they can submit the blog's URL to Canvas for marking. 

What support is available to me? 

The LTU is available to discuss and support the ways in which any of these tools can be used effectively in your teaching.  Get in touch with us to arrange a meeting with one of our learning designers.

For specific help with Canvas get in touch with the FMHS Canvas support person: Sophie An s.an@auckland.ac.nz

Web 2.0 applications such as wikis, blogs, tagging, podcasting and the myriad of social networks can be leveraged in teaching and learning to enable communication, sharing and exchange of ideas and community building.

What is social networking?

The act of establishing online many-to-many human connections for the purposes of sharing information with the network or subsets thereof. Although one-to-one connections are possible in social network sites, the preponderance of activity engages a broader range of participants in any given network. (From Gartner: http://www.gartner.com/it-glossary/social-networking/)

A social network can be used to:

1. Build an online community so that students can work together any time and anywhere.
2. Create an informal space  so that students - particularly students studying at a distance - can communicate freely.
3. Share a variety of course related resources - articles, images, audio files, video files, and web links.
4. Carry on discussions about teaching and learning.

The Canvas LMS is not technically a social network. Generally discussion forums in a learning management environment are more 'linear' and less conducive to 'networking' so there can be instances when an external social network will better meet student needs. 

There are numersous social networking sites out there with Facebook probably being the best known. However, there are major issues with privacy to be considered with Facebook so it is not really 'endorsed' or advised for use in teaching. That said, many students use it to create groups for their learning. 

Your safest option is probably to make use of a social networking site that is run within the University of Auckland such as:

• ELGG - CLeaR has supported instances of this one example being the Clinical Education course ClinED 711 Elearning in Clinical Education which is offered as part of the Masters in Clinical Education.
• Yammer (the auckland.ac.nz network) used by many staff now as a social networking environment amonst themselves.
• But you can also use Yammer with your students using the aucklanduni.ac.nz network which enables your students to login using their Student email address and password. (NOTE: you need to use your - upi@aucklanduni.ac.nz email address to set this up).

If you would like to explore the use of these networking environments please get in touch with the Learning Technology Unit to discuss options.

There are numerous polling options that allow learners to answer questions or to provide instant feedback to you during classes.

How might I use them in my teaching?

They are particularly suited to promote interactivity and are designed to promote student participation in large classes. Students' answers, or votes, are gathered during the lecture, and the software immediately displays the results. This allows you, the lecturer, to instantly assess participation patterns among your students. You can show class results immediately (students' answers can be anonymous) and use this to engage your students in subsequent discussions.

Common question types are multiple choice and true/false although a variety of student response systems offer other varieties of question types such as hot spots and mathematical notation.

A detailed description of the many polling options available to you take a look at the resource below which was created by Sally Eberhard in School of Business: 

Open spreadsheet on polling software