Evaluating and Designing Smartphone Applications for Nursing Education

Abstract

-The smartphone has become a popular accessory in the pocket of many nursing students nowadays. They are widely accepted new devices much cheaper and more universal than PDAs. The use of smartphone applications would be the good supplement for nursing education. The smartphone provides a quick access to educational materials and guidelines during clinical, class and panel discussion. With downloadable applications, subscriptions, and reference materials, they can be used to engage students and reinforce learning anytime and anywhere. New nurses can review references online instructional videos prior to performing skills in their clinical practice. Furthermore, the rapid change of preferred treatments, drug dosages, postsurgical care, and preventive healthcare regimens requires knowledge update and lifelong learning for both nursing students and experienced nurses. This article will introduce the issues surrounding the use of smartphones in nursing education first, then discuss the related technologies in the design and development of smartphone applications.

Mini Nurse Lite, Medical Tool Quiz and More: Smartphone Apps as Interactive English Medical Materials for Nursing Students

“…Similarly, George & DeCristofaro (2016) emphasized that smartphone apps were highly received by students and enabled them to transfer learning from the classroom and laboratory to the community context. Therefore, smartphone applications were a useful and handy tool to stimulate active learning by offering quick access to educational materials in their clinical practice, as well as to engage students and reinforce learning at any time and from any location (Zhan, 2014).…”

“…Smartphones may be simply included in nursing curriculum. During the lesson, students can use their smartphones to update their medication knowledge, verify their clinical experience in terms of hours, and access reference books or e-books (Du, Liu, Liu, Yin, Xu, Zhang, & Wang, 2013;Zhan, 2014). The previous studies concentrated on the effectiveness of using a smartphone for nursing education.…”

Research and Application of Interactive Teaching Software on iOS Platform Based on Computational Thinking

“…The use of smartphone applications would be the good supplement for nursing education. The smartphone provides an efficient and user-friendly access to references and learning materials [7] .…”