My Success Story and Some Lessons Learned

1. Using WIKI Workspaces to Teach
Community Health Nursing
Sandra S. McNeely, MSN, RN, CNE
Title V Distance Learning Symposium
September 14, 2012

2. Community Health Nursing
• Focuses on community-based nursing and
population focused health.
• Community assessment group project:
– Overview of local, state & national data
– Windshield survey of community
– Interview community members & leaders
– Photographs, charts, graphs
– Synthesize findings into health intervention plan

3. Course Objective #5
Demonstrate effective interpersonal
communication and collaboration with other
health care professionals.

4. Why WIKI Workspaces?
• Students:
– Collaborate online.
– Share documents and photographs.
– Set schedules and make assignments.
– Organize the project into pages.
• Faculty members:
– Have access to student projects for team grading.
– Track student progress and offer guidance.
– Objectively assess student contributions.
– Save in PDF for records, accreditation reviews, etc.

5. Student Exemplar

6. Student Exemplar

7. Student Exemplar

8. Outcome
• Students had never heard of WIKI Spaces.
• They complained about having to learn new
technology.
• They were frustrated, even with tech support.
• The WIKI did not necessarily reflect perceived
student time and work.

9. Recommendations
• Awareness of student skills
– Not all students are tech savvy
• Class use of WIKI Spaces
– Developing a space in class may facilitate F2F
instruction & role model use for students
• Alternate forms of WIKI Spaces
– Zoho.com/projects
– Wikispaces.com