Teleporting Story: How Nurse Educators Use Digital Stories to Teach

Monday, 9 November 2015

Melissa Schwartz Beck, PhD, MSN, BSN, RNC-OB
Junior Division, East Carolina University, Greenville, NC, USA

The National League of Nursing calls for nurse educators to think beyond the 20th century pedagogy to explore new possibilities in nursing education that is research based. The concern for educators then is how to effectively incorporate new pedagogical tools that will engage, inspire, and better prepare future nurse graduates. This interactive presentation shares how 12 nurse educators from Europe and the United States have incorporated digital stories to teach both within and outside the classroom walls. Digital stories, the newest pedagogical tool on the narrative field, combines audio, text, picture and video to bring story to life. Data collected from this descriptive qualitative study suggest digital stories assist educators in making a point, better engages students in discussion, enhances information technology skills, and promotes reflection, empathy, and critical reasoning in undergraduate nursing students. The participants of this study provided a wealth of knowledge that could provide the needed portal to not only educate nursing students, but students and patients around the world.