Assignment: Write a 1-2 page essay that introduces yourself. Describe why you are taking this course and what you hope to learn.

Carol's Introduction to the Class, Carol Luppi Sep 19, 4:28 pm
Hello everyone. What a gorgeous Monday. I spent most of yesterday working in my yard. I see some of you already ventured into our discussion group while I was mulching the back yard garden. I am doing my best not to be intimidated by your productivity.
My name is Carol Luppi. I am a nurse educator in the Nursing Professional Development Department at Brigham and Women’s Hospital (BWH). I started my nursing career at BWH in 1981 after graduating from Northeastern University. I have been a staff nurse in obstetrics and the clinical educator in Labor and Delivery. Most recently, I have assumed the responsibilities for introducing new technology to nurses in all areas of the hospital. I am privileged to work with another one of our class mates, Diane Campbell. Diane and I work together to provide orientation classes for newly hired nurses and we have the exciting opportunity to create the nursing simulation center in our department. I have also had the pleasure of working with our class mate, Michael Dumais, when he was at BWH.
I have to smile when I think about the evolution of my career. As a young adult, I vowed never to turn into my parents. As I get older, I realize that I am following in my parents’ footsteps with my own healthcare focus. My father was a quality control engineer at United Technologies Corporation responsible for many highly technical projects including the first fuel cells used by NASA. My mother was an award-winning public school teacher. I am now teaching nurses how to use new technology to provide safer and more advanced health care. I am extremely fortunate to have had their influence in my life. My family is very influential in my life. I live with my younger sister. She is the Organizing Director for Clean Water Action / Clean Water Fund. My brother-in-law is a bureau director of the Department of Environmental Protection for the state of Maine. The exercise we all completed the first day of class is a very common theme in my life.
I am taking this course as the first step towards my ALM in Instructional Technologies. I started a graduate degree program in nursing a few years ago and wasn’t satisfied by the material. I thoroughly enjoyed my years as a bedside nurse and find myself with a new career path. I was always drawn towards the technical aspects of modern healthcare. I have also learned that teaching nurses about cutting edge healthcare technologies is equally challenging and exciting for me.
To teach state-of-the art technology to over 2,500 nurses means that I have to learn new skills and assist the department in creating a new education infrastructure. The description of this course and other courses in this degree program appear to offer what I need to perform my current job. I am also interested in acquiring many of the computer skills for my personal life. I sincerely look forward to meeting you in this virtual medium and during the upcoming months. I hope we can network together towards meeting all of our individual goals.

Assignment: Imagine that you are employed as a teacher or instructional technologist in a K-12 school or college/university. Would you purchase Turnitin.com (or recommend that it be purchased)? Justify your answer, making sure to identify the strategies you feel are most important to encourage original work and discourage plagiarism and how the technology supports (or doesn’t) the strategies you’ve identified.

7Carol's opinion of Turnitin, Carol Luppi Oct 5, 7:22 pm
My recommendation for purchase of the product Turnitin would be based upon the goals of the educational institution. Is the goal to merely detect plagiarism or is the goal to promote original work and eliminate plagiarism?
If the goal is to merely detect plagiarism, I would recommend the purchase of the product when it is used as merely a tool for detection of possibly plagiarized material. I see the product as an effective tool for detecting potential plagiarism based upon the many testimonials and the publications documenting the successes that a variety of institutions have cited. Once the program has detected suspicious text, it would be up to the faculty to appropriately investigate and consistently address the behavior. This product does seem to keep one step ahead of students that are very accomplished with the vast array of illicit sources for class work.
If the goal is to promote original work, I have serious concerns about recommending the purchase of the product. I do not feel this is a tool for promoting original work. I compare it to a radar gun for police to detect speeding. A radar gun is reasonably effective as a detection device when it is used by trained police personnel and arguably effective as a deterrent to speeding. There are radar gun failures and some citations may need to be investigated. A radar gun; however, does not teach safe driving skills, law-abiding behaviors or good citizenship. Turnitin is merely a radar gun and not a complete solution to the problem of plagiarism in a school system.
The goal of promoting original work and eliminating plagiarism requires a more complex solution. This goal requires an unambiguous and steadfast philosophy regarding all inappropriate student behaviors. There are so many dangerous behaviors that do not have web-based detection systems. Curriculum content should uniformly address all types of dishonesty and “rule breaking” including plagiarism in the same manner. Students need to understand that all apparently unacceptable actions will be investigated fairly and all inappropriate behaviors will have consequences.
Students also need to be taught the appropriate methods of original work and how to avoid plagiarism. Curriculum content should include age specific subject matter regarding the writing process, proof-reading, time management techniques, proper citation methods, copyright law, and plagiarism. I agree with the excellent suggestions for curriculum design in many of our class readings and especially the concepts in “Anti-Plagiarism Strategies for Research Papers” by Robert Harris. I know personally that I benefited greatly from teachers that provided me with the building blocks for creative writing. (I hope that my postings do not contradict this statement). They reviewed my outlines, drafts, and final documents. (I used an outline and created a draft of this opinion). I was required to explain and illustrate the origins of my thought processes. I think of the Hollywood example from the movie “Working Girl”. Siguorney Weaver’s character tried to “steal” an original merger idea from her secretary played by Melanie Griffith. Melanie Griffith ultimately defended her idea (and got Harrison Ford) by describing how she created the idea by reading a few articles in a magazine. Of course, that’s just Hollywood.
I have also personally seen the benefits of consistent curriculum design within a school system from initial writing classes in elementary school to final assignments in high school. My nephews have greatly benefited from this type of instruction and are very talented and ethical writers. They also benefited from well trained and well supported teachers. Promoting original work and eliminating plagiarism requires faculty education and support. I am unfamiliar with the specific methods for the continuing education of teachers and the political infrastructure. of school systems for supporting faculty professional development. That being said, the managing body must support their faculty in acquiring the skills to promote original work and eliminate plagiarism in our modern world that includes so many opportunities for students to make the poor choice of plagiarism. Merely purchasing Turnitin will not accomplish this goal.
I look forward to reading the opinions of our diverse class and know that I will learn so much from you all.

Assignment: You have now read diverse opinions of PowerPoint. What do you feel is PowerPoint’s role, if any, as an instructional tool in schools and businesses? Note: If you are more familiar with schools, consider that environment. If you are more familiar with corporate education, consider that environment.

5I Love PowerPoint, Carol Luppi Oct 19, 2:14 pm
I have been using PowerPoint since 1992 and have been in the audience for thousands of PowerPoint presentations. PowerPoint has been an extremely valuable tool for me in nursing education and academic medicine. A PowerPoint presentation with pictures, graphs and text (sometimes even with bullets) is much more efficient than the spoken word. “A picture is worth a thousand words.”
Like the rest of you, I’ve been bored to tears by hundreds of bulleted lists. Remember those awful blue slides with bulleted yellow text! I still have to disagree with Tufte and agree with his opposition. I particularly disliked the emotional example of the Columbia disaster. The problem isn’t the software. The software is merely a tool. Please, don’t blame the instrument when you don’t like the music. A high-quality presentation requires a comfortable, knowledgeable speaker and a well-designed slide show. I agree with Don Norman. The problem with the slides was the person who created the slides. Perhaps the creator was duped by the supposed “PowerPoint Experts” that charge exorbitant amounts of money to teach a new user how to make “perfect” presentations. Perhaps the presentation would be worse without the PowerPoint slides.
When I first started public speaking, I was very nervous and searched for all kinds of advice. I got a lot of bad information. Okay, I confess. There was a period of time that I believed I could impress the audience with a flashy presentation and perhaps they wouldn’t notice my nervousness. Luckily I subsequently got some good advice about the pitfalls of distracting animation and other “PowerPoint Phluff” so I could be more effective.
I do rely on my slides to jog my memory about the next topic. The older I get, the more I realize that my memory is fallible. A comment or question from the audience or a particularly irritating participant can distract me. There are times that I’m “off” and I truly need a key word or two from the slides so that I can be somewhat eloquent. I feel that the critics of PowerPoint take public speaking skills for granted. Isn’t public speaking one of the greatest fears for human beings? There are times we need to communicate information to a large audience and need a tool to assist us. I regularly need to communicate information to audiences of 50 – 100 nurse leaders. I can’t imagine how I would present without PowerPoint when I speak at national meetings with an audience of 500 – 2,000 nurses. Imagine having a microphone bank and video cameras in front of you, spotlights in your eyes so you can’t even see the first row of the audience, and 2 huge screens behind you. One of the screens is projecting you at the podium. Thank goodness, the other screen has your PowerPoint presentation.
What are some of the ways the students are taught public speaking skills? How are they taught to use PowerPoint? Sorry for being so long-winded. I am rather passionate about this "PowerPoint."

Assignment: Describe one instance where you have observed technology being used well and one instance where it was used poorly. Justify your response using the readings from this week, any additional reading you have done, and your own experience.

3Simulation versus Boredom, Carol Luppi Nov 3, 2:03 pm
As you may imagine from my pamphlet and PowerPoint assignment last week, the most impressive use of technology that I have observed is Human Patient Simulation. Prior to anyone entering our lecture hall, the adult mannequin SimMan was set up in one of the seats. The lecturer started a very typical PowerPoint presentation and then about 5 minutes into his presentation he entered the audience and started interacting with SimMan who was having a heart attack. Audience members were called upon to assist with the medical care of the “patient”. The relatively simple video camera setup and the podium lavaliere microphone were more than adequate for the entire audience to learn from the interaction. Once we stabilized our “patient”, the lecturer debriefed the scenario with the participants replaying the video to stimulate discussion and reinforce teaching points. This use of instructional technology excites the learner, enables emotional learning, and provides the opportunity for reflective learning during debriefing. I found the literature that discusses the effect of emotion on learning very enlightening as to why human patient simulation (HPS) training is so valuable. HPS heightens the learner’s emotions. The circumplex model of emotions is a two dimensional structure of core affect and plots emotions on an X and Y axis. The X axis ranges negative unpleasant to positive pleasant and the Y axis ranges from negative unaroused to positive aroused. According to the majority of published works, an individual’s emotional states influences learning and also retention of that knowledge. Learning best occurs when the student is moderately aroused in a positive or even a mildly negative manner. When an individual is aroused or “activated” emotionally, knowledge is activated and can be recalled when similar emotional states are invoked. Emotional learning is also “anchored” by stress chemicals and therefore tends to be relatively indelible . We all want our students to be attentive, but this research documents that the learners needs to be excited about their lessons for long-term knowledge acquisition.
My worst example of the use of instructional technology has to be our current Learning Management System. A rather well known video company attempted to enter the world of web-based learning and contracted with our hospital to act as a beta site for their new web-based Learning Management System. They promised a system that would “Train, Test, and Track” all the education from the moment a staff member was hired until they retired. There is no per person charge for this system as we are a beta site. As this new technology was initially thought to be “free” (turned out not to be true), the nursing leaders were thrilled. No one is thrilled anymore. The company is severely under-resourced and dare I say clue less about education. Their “courses” are merely pages of text on a computer screen with multiple-choice exams. The tracking methods are almost as flawed as their education. If one does not look closely, there is an appearance of compliance with regulatory agency education and competency validation mandates. The compliance officer can run a report that supposedly documents that staff members took a course and passed a test. Trust me when I say that minimal learning occurs and this system does not meet the true spirit of the regulatory agency mandates for education and competency validation. It’s also rather painful for the administrators. In fact, one administrator calls the system T5 – Training, Tracking, Testing and Tedious Torture. Staff nurses also have a terrible time accessing computers at work to complete the course. It seems that equitable access to technology is not just a challenge in school systems as discussed in the NAEYC Position Statement. Yet, here we are 4 years into this process. As Larry Cuban describes, this company is merely using new technology to perpetuate the old practice of textbook readings and then an exam. Oh, did I mention, their server is down right now. Anyone else out there stuck with terrible programs?
Russell, J.A. & Feldman, Barrett, L. (1999) Core affect, prototypical emotional episodes, and other things called emotion: Dissecting the elephant. Journal of Personality and Social Psychoogy, 76, 805-819. Dolan, R.J. (2002) Emotion, cognition and behavior. Science, 88. 1191-1194. Rodrigues, S.M., Schafe, F.E., & LeDoux, J.E. (2004) Molecular Mechanisms Underlying Emotional Learning and Memory in the Lateral Amygdala. Neuron, 44. 75-91.

Assignment: Now that you have looked at several technology-rich projects and WebQuests, and developed a vision of how technology can best be used in the classroom, think of an idea or two that you would like to develop into your final project for this class. Describe your final project idea and share it in the online discussion. Read all of the final project ideas and provide feedback for at least two people. Note: You will use the feedback you get from your colleagues in this class to develop a final project proposal that is due on December 10.

2A Nursing Professional Development Web page, Carol Luppi Nov 10, 2:22 pm
Well, this has certainly been the most challenging online discussion topic to date. Stacie saved the best for last. I have racked my brain to come up with a project that will be applicable to Nursing Professional Development. I loved the creative WebQuests that were described in our readings, yet I can’t see nurses engaged in this type activity. Diane Campbell and I have been discussing possibilities for this assignment and have decided to work together. Diane and I hope to create a BWH Nursing Professional Development Web page with each of us working on separate components. I would like to focus on our new Nursing Simulation Center. Diane is going to focus on Nursing Grand Rounds. I hope to create our Simulation Center Web page to include information about our center and links to other Simulation Centers around the country, a bibliography of pertinent scientific literature regarding simulation, and interesting Web sites relating to simulation. Are we biting off more than we can chew? I don’t know how much work it is to create Web pages. We have server space at the hospital and a Nursing Department Web site.