Data Management

If there is one thing I know about myself, is that I am confident in being able to navigate technology. I can remember starting to use computers at home when I was still pretty young, possibly 3^rd or 4^th grade. My mother has worked in a chemistry laboratory longer than I’ve been alive, and has always used computers to help her compile data, so we have always had access to computers.

When taking the self-assessment, I was both surprised and not surprised of my score. I scored as “confident in the ability to use various computer programs and views computers as beneficial”. I made the assumption that as a generation X’er, that I would be confident in the use of technology, yet I also expected a higher score as someone who is self-proclaimed to be confident in such.

I will say that my confidence to use technology in other ways than just research and forums has changed significantly since starting this course. I have always been the one to be willing to show someone how to do something on a computer, or be willing to do internet-based research before I looked through books. We all know that technology will continue to grow as the years go on, just as those involved in nursing informatics previously knew that it would continue to grow to now.

This class has opened up so many different options for teaching strategies that I can also incorporate into my daily work life. Tomorrow, in fact, I will be giving a presentation for work and plan to use the videos that I have made for this class as teaching points for the nurses that will be there. There’s a greater sense of confidence in new-to-me technology that I am excited to use. This technology will continue to grow on me, and will no doubt be part of my future curricula, as in accordance to the IOM recommendations.

I see this as a start to what is sure to be a future of technology that will not stop advancing and that is very exciting for a future educator, like myself.