The document discusses the use of Web 2.0 technologies to empower educators and practitioners within communities of practice (CoPs) in the context of education and healthcare. It emphasizes the importance of collaboration and participatory learning approaches while addressing challenges faced by nursing as a profession within a changing ecosystem. Additionally, case studies from Ireland and North America are provided to illustrate the potential of CoPs in enhancing professional development and knowledge sharing.

1. Realising Possibilities
- Using Web 2.0 Technologies
To Empower Practitioners
Within A Community Of
Practice To Deliver Education
And Training
Anne Spencer
Dublin City University
PETAL

2. OVERVIEW
 Aim is to leave you with some thoughts for further
consideration and discussion perhaps within the
conference or within your own respective institutions,
both academia and practice
 Offer you some ‘real life’ case examples of COP’s that are
emerging within Ireland and North America
 To tell their stories as they are unfolding and the
challenges and opportunities each are facing

4. WEB 2.0 AND EDUCATION
The two-way web allows us to expand on how
we teach, communicate, learn and create
knowledge.
Many higher education institutions are
discovering that new models of teaching and
learning are required to meet the needs of a new
generation of students.

5. THE AFFORDANCES OF WEB 2.0
We know that students are becoming active participants
rather than passive consumers of web content.
We as educators should be encouraging and supporting
our students to use new technologies to create
communities to collaborate, learn and build knowledge.
Learning becomes a participatory, social process. It is
this sociability aspect that holds the greatest potential
for the future of education.

6. KEY OPPORTUNITIES ARISE FROM
THE INTEGRATION OF WEB 2.0
TECHNOLOGIES
Pedagogical Innovation
• Fostering collaboration
• Co-construction and sharing of knowledge
• Exchange of learning content
• Creation of ‘knowledge communities’
• More constructivist and situative learning approaches
can be fostered
• Individualised personal learning networks created

7. GLOBAL CHALLENGES OPPORTUNITIES
Many differing challenges exist within the world today and health care is no exception
– nursing as a profession is increasingly under ‘threat’ from many differing
perspectives and we need to ‘protect’ and ‘nurture’ our profession.
The Bee too is under threat and there are some similiarities in relation to how we ‘exist’

8. ECOSYSTEMS
• An ecosystem can be defined as a system formed by the
interaction of a community of organisms with their
physical environment.
• Increasingly healthcare is perceived and referred to as a
type of ecosystem.
• For example in 2011 EU Final Report on e-Health
infrastructures in Europe identifies a conceptual model for
national e-Health infrastructures as an ecosystem.
• If this is the case then where is nursing located within this
ecosystem and what is our function?

9. UNDER THREAT?
Bees play an important role in the terrestrial ecosystem
-which is increasingly underthreat worldwide, and the impact of this
is not insignificant.

10. FACTS
Honey bees are sociable, they live within well organised colonies with a queen,
thousands of workers and a few male drones.
Their age determines what role they perform in order to complete various daily activities.
They work as individuals and collaboratively.

11. In summary a colony of Bees have shared goals and a common purpose :
Social group - Communication
Highly organised – structure with roles
Can be defensive = protecting their community
Adopt and Adapt to their environment to ensure sustainability

12. FACTS
An increasingly rare commodity which is invaluable to many –
both on the breakfast table and increasingly so within health.

13. NURSING – AN ECO SYSTEM?
We need to effectively
use our environment,
and our skills and
professional ‘know how’
to navigate through the
current global ‘climate
change’ to strengthen
our future.

14. PRESENTATION MAP

15. COMMUNITIES OF PRACTICE
Communities of Practice (COP)
originally were devised as a form of
learning theory to promote
empowerment and professional
development in the workplace.
Today COP’s are often used to
promote the uptake of new
knowledge and to create knowledge
networks.
The World Health Organisation
Strategic Directions Plan for Nursing
and Midwifery for 2011-15 identifies
COP as effective networking and
partnerships activities (KRA 5).
Wenger, 2006

16. Intellectual Disability Nursing & Midwifery Education Mental Health
Older Person Child & Young Adult
Electronic Healthcare Record PARTNERS CT Maternal & Child Health

17. COP’S - COMPARISONS
Collaboration &
Shared Goal & Purpose
Communication
Protecting & Organising the
Community Sustainability

18. PARTNERS CT MAP
• Development of Shared Assessment
Tool for the Older Adult to capture
patient outcomes (acute, community,
continuing care)
• Develop resources to demonstrate www.partnerscop.com
why this tool was required

19. PARTNERS CT

20. MHTNI MAP
• A community development initiative,
addressing the increasing mental health
problems
• Open Dialogue service, between
carers/service users, health professionals
and others
• Joint Learning Environment – Leadership www.trialogue.co
Programme

21. MENTAL HEALTH TRIALOGUE NETWORK
A Vision for Change (2006)
The aim of this Network is to
empower communities in
Ireland to become proactive in
communicating about mental
health through a powerful open
dialogue and participatory
process called ‘Trialogue’.

22. MENTAL HEALTH TRIALOGUE NETWORK
1. Dysfunctional communication
in dementia care
2. Confronting the voices of oppression
In mental healthcare
3. Exploration of habitual communication
In intellectual disability day care
4. Marginalising sameness and
difference amongst young people.

24. MENTAL HEALTH TRIALOGUE NETWORK

25. MENTAL HEALTH TRIALOGUE NETWORK

26. MENTAL HEALTH TRIALOGUE NETWORK

28. BONE HEALTH MAP
• National Falls Strategy
• Implementation of Local Falls Awareness
Strategy
• Implementation of FRAT Tool
• Importance of maintaining Bone Health www.bonehealth.co

29. BONE HEALTH IN THE PARK – I AM NOT FALLING FOR YOU!

30. BONE HEALTH IN THE PARK – FOREVER AUTUMN

32. AUGMENTED REALITY

35. ELECTRONIC HEALTH RECORD
MAP
www.ehrinsight.net

36. OVERVIEW OF EHR
The Electronic Healthcare Record Project ia joint initiative across three academic
institutions in Ireland – Dublin Institute of Technology, Dublin City University and
Trinity College Dublin.
The project team leader is Dr Pamela Hussey from SNHS DCU.
The project team have a keen interest in the successful implementation of EHR in
Ireland and collectively have a comprehensive understanding of what is required to
ensure that Ireland is properly prepared to engage in national implementation
programmes in the future.
There is significant evidence to suggest that enterprise or national EHR
implementations are not as effective as one would expect.
This project focuses on creating an introductory resource for education and training
of key stakeholders on the importance of EHR and is designed for use across a
number of disciplines including health care professionals and engineering students.

38. COP WEB SITE STATISTICS
NNIDI
 Total 3,327
 New 1,894
BHITP
 Total 2,800
 New 1,629
MHTNI
 Total 17,600
 New 12,556
Partners COP
 Total 1,600
 New 943

39. PARTNERS COMMUNITY OF PRACTICE
This COP has evolved over the past three years from a number of action research
initiatives within Ireland.
PARTNERS COP supports the notion of transformational change in the following
Way:
• Engages in and with others to contribute shape and implement appropriate theory
into practice.
• Uses technology to empower clinicians/educationalists to develop and share
their knowledge and skills.

40. PARTNERS COMMUNITY OF PRACTICE
Dr Anne Matthews Daragh Rodger, ANP Therese Danaher Siobhan MacDermott
Dr Liam MacGabhann Dr Pamela Hussey Dr Margie Kennedy Anne Spencer

41. PARTNERS COP MAP
www.partnerscop.com

42. NURSING NETWORK
INTELLECTUAL DISABILITY,
IRELAND

44. MATERNAL AND CHILD HEALTH – GLOBAL HEALTH

45. COSYS STRATEGIC
ALLIANCE PROGRAMME
Is the cooperation between Irish Aid and Higher Education and
Research Institutes.
The PI is Dr Ruarai Brugha from the Royal College of Surgeons
Ireland and the following organisations and institutions are partners
in the project:
 Dublin City University (DCU), Ireland
 College of Medicine (COM), Malawi
 Zambia AIDS Related Tuberculosis Project (ZAMBART), Zambia
 Makerere University School of Public Health (MUSPH) - Uganda
 Concern Universal (CU) Malawi
 Concern Worldwide (CW) Ireland and Malawi
 AIDS Alliance Zambia (AAZ)

46. COSYST – GOAL
The goal of COSYST-MNCH is, through a strong partnership
of experienced development workers, researchers and
practitioners, to achieve a better understanding of
community factors underpinning maternal, neonatal and
child health (MNCH) outcomes in Malawi and Zambia &
Uganda.

47. EMERGING COP’S
• Exploring the concept of the Global Classroom for example for
students to explore cultural issues
• Paediatrics – Living with Childhood Chronic Illness – co led
with young adults
• Educators and Practitioners - New Teaching and Learning
Technologies
• Older Person – Caring 4 Each Other – Dementia Care Portal

48. SUMMARY
 Nursing and its future use of technology within the
scope of healthcare needs to be managed and
strong leadership is now required.
 Much is written reporting nurses as the knowledge
workers in health care who through a process of
assimilation convert data to information---
Information to knowledge and with experience we
use our wisdom and clinical judgement to inform our
practice.
 In so doing we can deliver the best possible care
and ensure that the knowledge of nursing and the
craft of caring is maintained for future generations
to come.

49. FINALLY -
 Considering health as an ecosystem and comparing
ourselves to the ecosystems of bees offers us time to reflect
and consider ourselves as ‘knowledge workers’ in a global
environment which is changing.
 Just as bees are adopting and adapting to their new climate
so too will nursing as a profession.

50. Education is not the
filling of a pail ………
But the lighting of a fire! William Butler-Yeats

51. QUESTIONS & QUERIES
#ICIN12
@as48
Email aspencer@petalireland.com www.petalireland.com