Development of an electronic portfolio system for recording of continuous professional development (CPD) and competency for nurses

Development of an electronic portfolio system for recording of continuous professional development (CPD) and competency for nurses
Key messages


1. Portfolios are necessary to allow nurses to prove Competency and Continuous Professional Development (CPD) for AHPRA. These Portfolios need to promote and prompt nurses to reflect on CPD activities.

2. Worldwide there is growing need to migrate from paper-based portfolios to electronic portfolios which provide users with the digital tools to demonstrate their life-long learning skills, and development over time.

3. E-portfolios - are personal online spaces for clinical staff to access services and store proof of CPD. They will become more useful as clinicians grow and start moving between different types of learning and different institutions.

A professional portfolio is a document of how an individual has contributed to their ongoing professional development. It generally comprises the three aspects of Assessment, CPD and Recency of practice:

• Assessment can involve a personal reflection on the individual’s own competency to practice, a completion of a checklist against the standards or even a professional review by the employer,
• CPD is a formal record of 20 hours. Learning needs must be identified and the record of CPD must show that the individual has met these needs. It must also include a reflection on how this learning will assist you in their practice, and
• Recency of practice can be proven with the inclusion of an updated resume within the portfolio (Ceely, 2010)

The purpose of a portfolio can be defined as a “visual representation of the individual, their experience, strengths, abilities and skills” McCready quoted in Casey & Egan.(Casey & Egan 2010) A portfolio can be a storage portal for certificates but should also provide evidence that is valid, sufficient, authentic, reliable and current. A well constructed portfolio should show evidence of how learning occurred together with practical applications. Generation Y especially see learning opportunities as crucial to their development. (Cubit & Ryan 2010)
Electronic Portfolios are a flexible vehicle to showcase professional development. Its advantage is that in can be published in a variety of formats, including via the internet. It can be distributed/replicated with ease and is transferrable to new work environments. Several multimedia tools are available to make portfolios interactive. These include images, video, audio and technologies like shockwave and JavaScript. (Lewis & Baker 2007) The portfolios can also be easily accessed through any devise with an online capability including mobile phones. Due to the electronic nature of these portfolios it can enable real-time documentation of activities and learning.
Portfolios can provide evidence of understanding of concepts as well as attainment of the skills to organise, synthesize and communicate achievements. Portfolios can ensure that the individual has significant input in their own learning goals.


References

• Casey, D., & Egan, D. (2010). The use of professional portfolios and profiles for career enhancement. British Journal Of Community Nursing , 15(11), 547-552.
• Celery, M. (2010). National Registration and Professional Portfolios: What does it all mean? Journal Of The Australasian Rehabilitation
• Nurses' Association (JARNA) , 13(2), 4-6.
• Cubit, K.A., Ryan, B., (2010) Tailoring a Graduate Nurse Program to meet the needs of our next generation nurses, Nurse Educ. Today, doi:10.1016/j.nedt.2010.03.017
• Garrison, D. R. (2011). Assessment and Evaluation. In E-Learning in the 21st Century. (2nd ed.). (pp. 106-107). New York, USA: Routledge.
• Lewis, K., & Baker, R. (2007). The development of an electronic educational portfolio: an outline for medical education professionals. Teaching & Learning In Medicine, 19(2), 139-147.
• Mills, J. (2009). Professional portfolios and Australian registered nurses' requirements for licensure: developing an essential tool. Nursing & Health Sciences, 11(2), 206-210. doi:10.1111/j.1442-2018.2009.00457.x
• Nursing and Midwifery Board of Australia (2010, July).Continuing professional Development Registration Standard

This project was supported by a Practice Development Scholarship PDS-03-12 from the ACT Nursing and Midwifery Office

Looking Back

Well,I successfully managed to complete that semester and I found that I finished with a few new skills as well as idea's for the future.
Assignment 1 of the course involved group work to set up a wiki and together to examine 2 technologies.
As with all group work whether face to face or online there will always be challenges. The dynamic and individual of a group were interesting and I found that 2 of us worked better as a team and 1 person seemed to prefer to work alone. In the end we have a wiki discussing online asynchronous online discussions as well as the use of blogs in the teaching and learning environment.
Our wiki is found here: teaching-learning-tech. I was able to practice a few of the skills taught within the course including links to other site and insertion of pictures and videos into the wiki.


Assignment 2 involved development of an e-learning product.Whilst I had many idea's of things that I wanted to try, ultimately I designed a product that I would definitely be able to use in my work day life. Using the "survey monkey" technology I designed a survey to distribute to nurses to find there perceived learning needs. It has not yet been distributed ( hoops that must be jumped through in the public sector!)

The outcome of the course is that it made me aware of how much technology can help us as we teach and interact with students.
Since completing this s semester I have applied for and received a grant ti develop an e -portfolio system for the recording of Continuous Professional Development and Competency for Nurses. I would like to some how include blogging within the system as a reflective tool will have to see how it all works out!.

Delivery Technologies

I honestly am feeling a bit of information overload after reading all the material for this week on Instructional Design.
Some of the items mentioned I am familiar with and other I have never heard of.
RSS-ok got an understanding of this one and a great way to keep the interaction with students. They subscribe to your feed and get updated every time you post a new topic. Flip side of it is that if you have 50 students there is no way you want to have an RSS feed to all of them.
WIKI-Apart from wikipedia this was a totally foreign concept to me. I am getting my head around it now and really looking forward to the group assignment where we will actually put together our own wiki.
Flickr- so I have now joined, always knew of flickr especially every time I have done a search on google images a number of images that come up are from flickr especially if you search specifically for pictures that are labeled for reuse.I have uploaded some of my own scenery shots . Basically same principle as facebook uploads so not too laborious.. So to share a photo from flickr I could not find an advanced search to search for photo's that had Creative Commons licence (ccl). This meant that I found a number of photo's I liked but then found the use restricted. The following photo is ccl

Animations and Gizmo's
Wow some of those Gizmos were really great and I could see the benefit when teaching subjects like maths and science. The best is that the are interactive and react to whatever the students enters.
Web quests These I had never heard of but having seen the potential I believe I could really make use of this as an alternative to the sometimes dry and boring learning packages that we offer to nurses. When I did a search I found a quest aimed at Paramedics and I realized the potential of this as a delivery method.I may even decide to used type of technology for assignment 2.
Slideshare This was another new concept for me.I have registered but have not put anything together as yet. Maybe when I do I will add it to this blog!

Well at the end what I want to  achieve is a way to communicate with the student in a meaningful way and above all to ensure interaction and engagement. If you have that learning will inevitably follow.

Learning and Teaching with Technology

Well this is my first post on my new Blog "Tertiary Teaching and Learning" I will be using this blog
to support my learning during the course of Graduate Certificate in Tertiary Education.

I will eventually have links to my wiki and possibly a website if I find that will support my endeavours.
In a way I am lucky in that I have previously used blogging but in a totally different context. My previous blog was an attempt to educate and empower woman when making choices about child birth.My challenge their was to keep it updated. Since my focus has changed I think that will no longer be a problem.

So how can I use blogging to enrich learning?
In a way it almost seems that a blog in theory could replace the "lecturer " in the front if the class! Well not really but it will certainly add a new dimension and access to students.So what would we lack in the blog -well the face to face contact for sure but through comments there is an interaction that can occur between teacher and learner and between learners.
Questions can be posed that invite the participants to interact by commenting.The skill is in asking the right questions that attract the reader to get involved and make the comment.

What I like about the blog is that you can design it to be a 1 stop shop for everything the student needs.
Links to videos to explain or reinforce a point.
Links to other websites that will enrich the learning or offer resources to the learner.
Links to text books that are required or suggested and can be purchased on line.

Having RSS feeds ensure that those who wish to be updated can subscribe and be alerted when new topics are posted.
The ability to link new posts to facebook and twitter allow the users to be alerted to new material that is published.

So far I have looked at blogging only as a platform for me as the teacher to "speak" to the student.
I need to look at blogging from the other side too. How would a students use of a blog enrich their learning and how will I as the teacher be able to assess this as a learning activity?

Well that can be for next time...