Course Summary

What I liked most about this course has been that it took me deeper into websites than I would have gone on my own initiative. I enjoyed critiquing websites and especially valued the HON assignment that reviewed the quality and reliability of websites for healthcare on the Internet. While the journey has been good for me and one that has taught me much, I am equally certain that online education has limitations and is still in the growth and development stages.

For me the greatest challenge was opening all of the windows to see if the assignments were placed everywhere they belonged. The semantics of learning made it hard to enjoy the content at times. My own lack of exposure to online courses limited me, and I did not know what questions to ask or who could answer them. Younger classmates or those with children old enough to help were able to unblock content that I did not know I had not even viewed!

I do use technology and plan to continue learning new programs, but I have been surprised at how much has been new for me this semester. This is a definite first course in the DNP curriculum, and I am thankful to have it early in the program. It seems well placed and parallels other things that we have to do in other courses.

My main suggestion is for more communication between faculty and students. It is always helpful to know if papers are received and properly cited or placed. For example, the Leadership course faculty always sends a brief, "Received your paper" note in email, and that relieves anxiety about getting things turned in properly and timely. Also the numbering of modules was fairly confusing to me. One through six is linear and easy enough, but they were not always numbered that way, matching dates are also nice to have for each semester. The reading was helpful and informative, though it seemed quite a large volume. The stack that I have printed and read for this class is far more than in other classes. I even think it would be great to know how long the podcast would last just for planning time to sit down and listen since some I viewed were very short and others were a full hour each. The time could be added to the module READ section.

In conclusion, I have learned so much that I smile when I think about how fast we have traveled through creation of a blog, literature searches, End Notes, Ref Works, Websites, PDA downloads, HON critiques, using Pod Casts, downloading videos, unblocking syllabi's, and logging onto wireless sites (in Little Rock, AR, Dallas Fort Worth, and Salt Lake City both on campus and in the hotel). The class has stretched me, and I am glad for it. Thank you! Now I get to share what I have learned with others. For example a faculty colleague just asked me how to set up a blog, and I had the knowledge to help her. One of my assignments for the BSN students who I teach was for them to locate materials online that have the HON seal. So this class has been like a stone tossed into the water, and now the ripples have begun to reach others.