This presentation will present an analysis of the application of communicative and creative technologies in planning and teaching social justice and activist initiatives in nursing curriculum. The Canadian Nurses Association identified social justice as a priority for nursing practice and education, with a focus on the foundational values of cultural respect, collaboration, equity and capacity building at jurisdictional, national, and international levels (Canadian Nurses Association, 2003).
Since 2005, I have designed and taught a course entitled “Nurses Influencing Change” to fourth year BSN students at Kwantlen University College in British Columbia. The use of information and communication technologies has become a strong thread woven through out this course, with the premise that the “media” is a powerful force in both preventing and initiating social change. Students are exposed to a plethora of web-based initiatives and tools to both examine and learn how to motivate social justice and change initiatives on a grand scale. They are taught how to apply various change theories, and to organize coalitions, to lobby, and initiate online activist campaigns. The students are required to plan a comprehensive social change project; prepare group presentations about influencing social change; and to create web-based digital media projects in which they need to present a selected social issue and apply a known change theory to create a viable action plan to elicit public support. The question that has continuously guided this work is, “How can communicative and creative technologies be used to stimulate meaningful social justice and change praxis in nursing curriculum?”
Biography
June Kaminski is completing her PhD at the University of BC in Technology Education, Curriculum Studies. Her focus is educational technology, informatics, aesthetics and e-learning for nursing. Currently, she is presently focusing on her PhD dissertation work on the faculty perceptions of nursing informatics and education culture. June is currently the President-Elect and Director of Communications for the Canadian Nursing Informatics Association (CNIA). She assumes the President role in 2008. She is also the Editor in Charge of Virtual Nursing Practice and Culture for the Online Journal of Nursing Informatics (OJNI) and a member of the OJNI Board of Directors. As well, she is the Editor in Charge of the Canadian Nursing Informatics Journal She has taught Nursing Informatics related theory and practice content to nursing students and nurses since 1990 at Kwantlen University College in Surrey, BC and presents education and other nursing informatics related information through her website Nursing Informatics.com at http://nursing-informatics.com
