[bmwdrives]

Hello,
My name is Barbara and I am a Nursing Instructor from Ohio. I Teach OB and Gerontology and Community Health Nursing. I teach both land-based and Internet courses. I am considering using PDA's with students and would like to know if any students and/or faculty have used PDA's and what is their opinion. Thanks in advance

[SusanJean]

I think they are great! I can download (for a fee of course) many of the medical and nursing texts and have them organized at my fingertips for ready reference. Not to mention the calendar and alarms that help me w/ planning.

I use it more and more as time goes on.
SJ

[ARNPsomeday]

It sounds wonderful. But please be sensitive to the students who cannot afford the expense.

[bmwdrives]

Originally Posted by SusanJean

I think they are great! I can download (for a fee of course) many of the medical and nursing texts and have them organized at my fingertips for ready reference. Not to mention the calendar and alarms that help me w/ planning.

I use it more and more as time goes on.
SJ

SusanJean,
Thank you for your response. Are you a student, graduate or Instructor? Any texts that you recommend or would not recommend? Again thanks your your help.
bmwdrives

[bmwdrives]

Originally Posted by ARNPsomeday

It sounds wonderful. But please be sensitive to the students who cannot afford the expense.

ARNPsomeday,
Good feedback. I would not require all students to have a PDA at this time, but would have it as an option. Hope to negotiate the cost of books on PDA to be the same as the cost of purchasing the texts themselves. ( If it is possible!) Thank you for your response. bmwdrives

[SusanJean]

Originally Posted by bmwdrives

SusanJean,
Thank you for your response. Are you a student, graduate or Instructor? Any texts that you recommend or would not recommend? Again thanks your your help.
bmwdrives

I'm a student in a BSN program. I have Taber's and Epocrates.
I will tell you that the PDA I have was rather expensive - I had the use of a cheaper one and found the lack of memory and no auto back up were a major pain...so when I bought my own, decided to purchase one that offered lots of space, room for expansion and did not loose data whenever it needed to be rebooted (or totally died.)
The school I attended prior to the BSN program included PDA's in the tuition, along w/ certain medical software packages. I believe that all medical and nursing schools should do this... it would allow students to learn to use the technology while students, decrease errors. Many texts are now available as software so rather than purchase the book, the $ can be used for software.
Schools can negotiate w/ companies a much better rate than indivuals can, so the overall cost would be less...
SJ