The Final Touches

In reviewing our presentation and the actual jeopardy game, we had to take the time to fine tune everything. Joellan spent a lot of time gathering additional pictures and images to plug into our game. Some of the questions are a little tricky so you have to read the posted articles in order to know the correct answer. So, we thought that adding some images with the questions could make the challenge less intimidating.
The goal, with any game, is for the learners to have fun and feel comfortable participating. Joellan delivered and we have a variety of clever images to go into the game presentation. I fine tuned our learning objectives for our presentation with the focus on games as an instructional method.
Although we have a lot of information on CVC sites and the care of CVCs, the purpose of this exercise is the exploration and utilization of the instructional method. Everything seems to be ready to go. We still have another week before our presentation, but we are now prepared and can shift our focus to the delivery of the presentation itself. There is some healthy anxiety between us both as to the technology. Our game for demonstration is interactive and includes audio. We're confident that our plan A, B, & C will work out as far as the delivery, but with technology, there is always the possibility that it can all go wrong at a moment's notice. This may be the point of this assignment.
Although we are both in the administration program, we both will be in a position to educate or present information to our health care professional peers. Preparation is key. We are looking forward to our presentation and hope the class will have fun with it. Joellan found a really cool game for all to participate. We put much thought into it and it is our goal that it will be both educational and a means to further develop our commrodary as nursing students and future nursing leaders.

Stephanie & Joellan

Meeting of the minds

Today, Stephanie and I got together to work on our presentation.  As I stated before, we have worked on group projects together in the past, so we have a certain rhythm to our madness!  We jumped right into the presentation.  We determined we would have two powerpoints to assist us in the description of games as an instructional tool and the other for the game itself. 
We gathered our resources and worked on the powerpoint for the game instructional method.  Stephanie found a template that had dice on it.  We looked over our objectives for the presentation to make our outline and dove right in.  The games method presentation was accomplished in a very timely manner.  We decided we only needed a few slides on the topic of games as we wanted to fill most of our time with the actual game playing.
In addition, the template was ready for the jeopardy game and we needed to figure out six categories with five questions for each category.  We determined we would have an equal number of categories on both the game method and the topic of CVC care.  The work came easy.  We decided we would need pictures on some of the slides to emphasize our points.  We referred back to the media posted on our wiki to find pictures.  It was somewhat difficult to think of the answers then the questions to fulfill the jeopardy format.

Stay tuned...
The game of jeopardy will be a battle between the campuses... study the published articles... the pride of NURS 6313 is on the line!

Successful Research Strategy

There is a research tip that I learned while in one of the business classes here in my administrative program. The very useful tool is.....................drum roll..................Google Scholar! If you are familiar with this then you are fully aware of how beneficial it can be.
For those of you who have not utilized this tool, allow me to explain....... Once you log onto Google Scholar, prior to searching for anything, you must select preferences. Once here, you go to college or institution and you will find UH-V in the drop box. SAVE your preferences. Now you are ready to begin.
It is my understanding that Google Scholar will now look for your search request in all UH-V data bases simultaneously. If the article is in one of our data bases, next to the link is an additional link which says "find it at UH-V." Just click on this and you are at our library. You can sign in and get your article! Simple.
This is how I begin any research process. UH-V library has so many data bases available to us, but I would find myself staying in the nursing area. The other data bases have a wealth of information as well, but I am partial to the nursing area and tend to ignore the rest. Google Scholar will tell you what data base the article is in within the UH-V library. You can see this once you have selected the article and you are looking at the details. Once in the library, I can open my EBSCO account folder and save research articles as I go along.
Here is one downside. Not every data base allow the opportunity to save anything to a folder. That being said, the opportunity for a one stop shop through all of UH-V databases is worth it. This provides the opportunity to see where you need to go for refining your search.
This is how I begin any research; including my search of educational games. Most all of my selected articles came through in the educational database of UH-V. I am a little obsessive when researching. I want to get my hands on everything and often have difficulty deciding when to stop. I'm always wondering...........what if I'm missing something? Where else should I be looking? Am I sure I have all I need? I used to spend countless hours going through one data base after another. This little Google Scholar gem helps to put my constantly wondering brain's questions to a little rest. I am reassured that I have checked through everything. Hope this can be helpful to any fellow obsessive students.


Stephanie

Finding media to utilize in our presentation

In order to find media for our presentation, I reverted back to Google!  I love using Google Image to find great pictures and diagrams for presentations.  However, you must be careful and site these sources.  In addition, some state they are copyrighted. 
To find the Jeopardy templates, I also "googled".  In addition, I searched the windows site under PowerPoint templates.  There were a few to choose from, but they cost some money and I of course wanted a free one!  However, I wanted one that would keep score and eliminate the question from the price board once it had been used.  After much searching, I found a couple that would do this.  However, they did not have the neat sound effects that the others had. 
To find sound effects, I headed back to Google!  There were many clips of the deliberation tune, but not of the intro.  I did find one of the announcer stating, "This is Jeopardy!".  What I ended up doing was attaching this sound clip to our first page and copying a first page from another template to import the opening music.  It was a bit technical, because if I imported an additional page than the template was all off by a page and the sequencing with the questions and price amounts would not work.  So, I had to import the page and fix it how I wanted then delete the original first page.
This was a lot of searching and technical tweaking, but the result is worth it.  I hope you will agree!

Joellan

Update

Stephanie and I have worked together on projects in the past so we naturally wanted to work together.  The topic of CVC infection prevention was easy to choose as it is one of the current initiatives being driven by insurance reimbursements or lack there-of.  After reviewing the current literature regarding CVC care and infection prevention, I believe we have a good grasp on the fundamentals of the process.  The game approach for an instructional method drew our attention as it is out of the norm.  However, we are finding it more difficult to formulate questions for Jeopardy than originally thought!  Stay tuned!

Joellan and Stephanie

More Challenges

Finding the information on the topic CVC care and infection prevention proved to be a typical search as many others in school.  However, finding game templates that worked was a more difficult task.  Stephanie and I decided to do a game of jeopardy.  I has seen many templates and had participated in some games at work so I thought it would be easy.  However, finding templates that looked like the game and that would fit our needs proved to be challenging.  The most difficult aspect was finding a template that the values disappeared when used.  However, through much deliberation, I succeeded!  Now the next task will be putting all the information together into the template.
Stay tuned!

Joellan

Challenges of Information Search

My first search was for “educational games” and the result was numerous articles on video games.  Although video games are under the umbrella of our project topic, we are looking at games in general for learning reinforcement. Searches for “games” and “fun learning” both yielded more information on video games and technology for education. The search of “games for learning” finally provided some data on more than just video games, hand held devices, and other media. I think that the multiple articles which appeared on video games and IT is a reflection of our current high tech society. However, the idea of making learning fun and enjoyable remains constant. In reading through the articles selected, research is demonstrating that interaction and positive reinforcement will enhance the learner’s ability to retain the information.

Stephanie

Welcome!

This is our first post!
Stephanie and I are currently researching utilizing games as an effective instructional method.  Our topic will be CVC care and infection prevention.  Stay tuned!