Online Libraries

One extremely useful tool available to online students are online libraries. While some require a subscription, there are many free online resources to pull books, journals and articles from. Gone are the days of driving to your local public library to perform literature reviews. A larger selection of literature is available at your finger tips on your computer. All universities have online libraries available to their students as a reliable resource of credible information. In searching the internet a wealth of credible articles can too be discovered if a discerning eye is used to weed out the less credible information.
Below are a list of online libraries available:
http://www.questia.com/Index.jsp
http://www.libraryspot.com/librariesonline.htm
http://www.ipl.org/
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed

E-books

Technology is continually developing and expanding into all corners of education. A new experience for me this semester is utilizing an e-book for this course as opposed to the usual text book. While I am still adapting, it is nice to carry only a Nuk instead of bulky text books. The Nuk is Barnes and Nobles version of the Kindle. Unfortunately, one cannot highlight content, but referencing sections of the book is quite easy in through the menu page. I wouldn't of guessed even a few months ago I would be this advanced in technology that I now read my books electronically. While e-books are not largely popular as of yet, I believe in the near future there is the potential for this format to take off as it is less expensive and much more compact. Once I moved past the insecurity of not having a physical book in my hand, I found I enjoy reading my books in this format and look forward to when all of my books will be available this way. See the link below and scroll down to the e-books section for more information.

http://people.uis.edu/rschr1/onlinelearning/

IDT Blog

This blog is aimed at reviewing current instructional design technology used in nursing today. It is extremely important in nursing to keep up with advances with diagnoses, treatments and technology within the field. There are many advances that are made within the field on a frequent basis that out date previous schools of thought. There are also numerous levels of professionals of which the information must be disseminated to. To do so, many types of teaching and educational strategies are employed. Strategies include journals both print and online, print and online CEUs, listserves and podcasts.

Print journals have been a popular for of education in nursing for decades. Within the past decade, online journals have become increasingly popular. The convenience of accessing online journals for research to provide evidence based practice has increased the popularity of online journals. Also, most journals allow for free online CEUs in conjunctions with the subscription. As CEUs are a requirement for licensing, this is a convenient way to keep up with needed education for renewal.

Listserves are another useful tool to assist in communicating with those who share a common practice or interest. Listserves are an avenue to exchange information and seek information from those who are at a similar level of practice. For example, if one is looking for what leading institutions are doing to reduce ventilator associated pneumonia a listserve would enable easy communication with those whom you are seeking the information from.

Podcasts, while not yet popular are a great tool for furthering education. I've utilized podcasts from the CDC and AACN to education staff on best practice for care of central lines in conjunction with other teaching strategies and have been able to reduce our central line blood stream infection rate to zero over the previous quarter. Many podcasts are free and easily accessible on the internet. Below is a link to more information on podcasts.