Telecommunications and nursing education

Telecommunications are becoming increasingly important to nursing educators. At the University of Nebraska Medical Center College of Nursing, communication by two-way television, computers, facsimile machines, and telephone conferences is essential to the administration and operation of a school with four divisions located across 500 miles. Two-way television is available through one system that uses satellite and fiberoptic technology and another that uses telephone lines. The four campuses of the college share classes, administrative meetings, and conferences through television. Faculty members teaching via TV are oriented to designing instructional material for transmission and to the minor quirks of the technology. Students in TV classes must be aware of their responsibility for active involvement in learning. Studies have found no significant differences in the grades of students in "live" classrooms and those in TV classrooms, but both faculty and students prefer the face-to-face situation. The College of Nursing uses computers extensively on an internal network linking the four campuses for E-mail, file transfer, computer-assisted instruction, and administrative information sharing. Another computer network, Synapse Health Resources Online, links the college and the Medical Center with health professionals in rural areas throughout the state.