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Evaluating the impact of mobile technologies on thestudent learning experience in health practiceplacements
Jill Taylor, Catherine Coates, Sara Eastburn, and Ieuan Ellis
Leeds Metropolitan University,j.d.taylor@leedsmet.ac.uk ABSTRACT
Practice education is a core element of all health care professional educationprogrammes and an essential component for registration to practice. Assessmentand Learning in Practice Settings (ALPS), a Centre for Excellence in Teaching &Learning (CETL), is a collaborative project between 5 Higher EducationInstitutions committed to delivering excellent assessment, learning and teaching(ALT) opportunities across health and social care professions.As an ALPS partner site, Leeds Met undertook a pilot project, involving pre-registration dietetic and physiotherapy students, to deploy mobile technologiesinto placement settings and to develop appropriate pedagogic approaches thatexploit the technology to deliver an enhanced student learning experience.MediaBoard was used to set up web-based multimedia message boards.Students and tutors contributed to the message boards by sending SMS (text),MMS (text, picture, audio), from O2 XDA 2 mobile PDA/phones. This allowedrecording of immediate “real time” experiences within the placements setting andexploited the features available on the mobile devices to record this informationin multimedia formats.The students collected information as part of a multimedia blog includinginformation about observations and learning experiences, especially pivotalincidents that support critical analysis of learning that underpins reflection. Theapproach also gave them the opportunity to work collaboratively to support andenhance inter-professional learning. Although the emphasis was on supportingformative activities the data collected could be used as evidence in summativeassessment of some of the practice placement learning outcomes.Key findings from the project evaluation are discussed such as learner and tutorexperiences, benefits to ALT, and issues associated with implementation such asusability, connectivity, and the ethical and cultural change issues that arise. Wewill suggest ways in which this technology could be utilised and embedded moreeffectively in ALT strategy.
 
 KEYWORDS
Practice education, Reflective practice, Mo-blogging, PDAs
INTRODUCTION
The potential of personal digital assistants (PDAs) for learning and assessment isof increasing interest to Health and Social Care Professions (Sauders andPellow, 2006) and the wider H.E. community (Smith, 2003; Anderson andBlackwood, 2004). The use of handheld computers to facilitate practiceassessment is one of the key strategic aims of the ALPS CETL. Mobiletechnologies are mainly being used for clinical rather than learning applications.Previous studies in health settings have been undertaken mainly in the USA andAustralia and have focused on nurses (Miller, 2006), paramedics (Norman, 2005)and doctors (Scheck McAlearney, 2004). These studies investigated the use ofPDAs to provide access to information and assessed the usability of the devicesfor Health Care Professionals. Walton et al (2005)
 
explored the perceptions ofhealth care students regarding the use of PDAs in the community.
 
The studentsshowed a low level of awareness of the technology but placed great importanceon being able to access learning resources from the community. They have beenfound to be an effective resource for students, especially for reference materials(Miller et al, 2005). There are very few studies that have assessed theeffectiveness of PDAs for practice assessment and these have mainly involvedself assessment activities with medics (Engum, 2003; Bent et al, 2002) andnurses (Kneebone et al, 2003). This study used physiotherapy and dieteticsstudents and aimed to evaluate the barriers and benefits of introducing PDAs forreflective learning and for the collection of learning artifacts to supportconstructionist pedagogies.
METHODS
Twenty pre-registration M.ScPhysiotherapy students and twelve B.Schons Dietetics students were issued withO2 XDA mini-s PDAs to support reflectivelearning experiences during assessedplacement taking place in a wide range ofpractice placement settings within NHSTrusts in Yorkshire. University tutors andlink tutors were also provided with PDAsto facilitate communication with thestudents. MediaBoard is a flexible, webbased tool which enables the creation ofinteractive learning tasks and projects. Ithas been previously used successfully todeliver a wide variety of educational
 
mobile pilots in a variety of educational settings (Savill-Smith, 2006). It was usedto set up Internet based multimedia message boards. A Mediaboard starts with acentral image which can be marked up into zones. Students are able to send incomments, which can be text, audio, pictures or emails to a specific zone. Unlikemost traditional Internet message boards they can add their comments bysending SMS (text) or MMS (picture, text and audio) from a mobile device. Avariety of mediaBoards were set up including the “Sites” board (Fig 1) whichprovided the opportunity for interprofessional learning and collaborative workingto support reflective practice.Individual and tutor boards were employed to log pivotal incidents and encouragereflective practice. Learning artifacts posted by students were used for formativeand summative assessment in practice modules and contributed to the studentspractice portfolios. The project was underpinned by hands on training sessionsfor staff and students on the use of the PDA and mediaBoard. These werecomplimented with online WebCT support materials and a IT helpdesk. Ethicalclearance was obtained from the Faculty ethics committee for the pilot and eachparticipating student completed an ethics proforma to ensure that no imageswere taken of active clinical environments to preserve patient confidentiality.A number of evaluation instruments were used to assess the experience of thelearners and practitioners including pre and post WebCT surveys, focus groups,semi-structured interviews of staff, and mediaBoard staff and student issuesblogs.
RESULTS
Students posted a variety of artifacts to their individual boards, for example,images taken of procedures, X-rays and clinical resources (Fig. 2) and in additionposted comments and reflections to tutors via the tutor boards.Most students preferred entering text data using the slide out keyboard inpreference to handwriting recognition or the on screen keyboard.
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