St. rose poster

Jennifer Boisvert, MS

Rhonda Esposito, MS, RN

St. Rose Educational Technology ConferenceMay 17, 2013 Albany, NY

Designing an Effective Online Orientation for Adult Learners

Overview of Nursing Program

• SUNY Empire State College• Began in Fall 2008, fully online RN to BSN program• Accredited by the Commission on Collegiate Nursing

Education (CCNE) in 2010• Currently 860 students• Age Range: 20-70• Gender: Male 11.3%, Female 88.7%

Project Overview

• Student Preparation– Designed for newly enrolled students– Introduce nursing students to online learning and available support

from faculty, staff, librarians, etc.– Provide students with information on the program’s policies and

procedures, mission, values, outcomes, resources, and organizational structure.

• School of Nursing– Transitioned from CDL to School of Nursing– Development of the program’s first RN to BSN online student

orientation

Project Stakeholders

• Who’s Involved• Dean

– Selection, Design, and Approval of Content, Dean’s Welcome

• Support Staff– Gathering Content

• Intern– Design, Layout, and Gathering of Content, Collaborative Meetings

• Instructional Designer– Design and Layout of Content

• Clinical Coordinator– Gathering Clinical Forms Information

• Faculty– Gathering Content, Providing Feedback

Image courtesy of Photos.com

Design Layout

• Content – Order– Brief and Concise

• Visually Appealing– Images– Font Size and Color

Design Layout cont’d

• Accessibility– Implementing accessible technological tools– Providing transcripts and closed captioning for audio components– Background and font colors– Alternative text for images

Alt text: image of the words true and false with checkboxes and a checkmark in the box next to false

Design Layout cont’d

• Student Engagement/Ease of Navigation– Novice vs. Expert– Engaging learning activities– Overview to introduce students to the orientation– Detailed directions

Image courtesy of Photos.com

Content Selection

Orientation Activities

• Word Clouds– Visual representation of text– Free– Wordle (

http://www.wordle.net)

Orientation Activities cont’d

• Avatars– Create animated movies using text

and avatars– Free– Xtranormal (

http://www.xtranormal.com)

Xtranormal example

Orientation Activities cont’d

• Flipbook– Interactive flipbook

displaying a PDF document

– Free– Flipsnack (

http://www.flipsnack.com)

Flipbook example

Orientation Activities cont’d

• Slideshare– Digitally share presentations,

images, and/or documents – Free– Slideshare (

http://www.slideshare.net)

Challenges

• Information all over place• What should and should not be

included?• Moving to a new LMS in Fall

2013• Location of faculty and schedules

to get information

Images courtesy of Photos.com

Questions

Image courtesy of Microsoft Clipart

Contact Information

SUNY Empire State CollegeNursing Program

113 West Ave. | Saratoga Springs, NY 12866

Jennifer Boisvert: jennifer.boisvert@esc.edu

Rhonda Esposito: espositor@nehealth.com