Hello, welcome to my first ever blog! this blog has been created as part of my participation in occupation paper in my 2nd year of a degree in occupational therapy. It shall detail my progress through the course and share some of the ideas that come to me during the year!

Thursday 29 March 2012


Information Technology and Ethical Issues

Wow, my first blog, as an occupational therapy student we are encouraged to try new things and I can honestly say that bogging is a new thing for me. This is only my second year of having the internet at my fingertips having not had internet at home growing up! I know! It’s not very common these days! 

My first blog will focus on, as the title suggests information technology and the ethical issues that surround it.
Information technology has many different definitions. Trust me when you type in Information technology definition into Google or into the library search engine you come up with a few (just a little understatement) definitions or search options.  After much debate amongst my flatmates (and some unsolicited bits of advice) I came to a conclusion and chose this definition from Techterms.com (2012) information technology is anything to do with technology. So I suppose that means that information technology can really be anything that makes use of different forms of technology, such as search engines like Google, Wikipedia and Yahoo.

The good (and bad) thing about information technology is that it’s always changing! Someone’s always thinking up and inventing new things and nothing ever stays constant. This means that it is constantly advancing! And new and more helpful items are being put on the market, like adaptive technology assistive advices (Bluetooth adaptable powered wheelchairs) and everyday items like laptops have been scaled down to the size of an I pad!

A great YouTube video about changing technology is called shift happens and I have to say it’s really true!
Shift Happens retrieved from youtube, pleasse click here if you can't see the video

It seems that technology is the be all and end all of the world. Almost everything has been computerised to the benefit or detriment of the people who use the technology. Technology is prevalent not just in education (schools and university) but in the majority of the business world. A large percentage of people’s everyday tasks and leisure activities are completed on some type of computer. Of course technology has a far wider reach than just education, business and leisure,   I grew up on a farm and I know that if anything drives my dad crazy it’s his automatic sheep weight drafting machine!  And I suppose that’s the most amazing thing about technology, it can be applied in so many different ways, a drafting machine originally made to weight wool bales can be adapted and used to sort sheep out by weight. 

An Ipad that was created as the next upgrade of portable technology can have apps downloaded and allow non- verbal people to speak.  Cell phones and laptops used to be bulky and very expensive meaning that they were generally out of reach for most people have in the last ten or so years become so common place that now it is almost consisted abnormal for people not to own cell phones or laptops or mp3 players.

I am still getting used to using most forms of technology (like this blog). Although participating in this course has defiantly helped me try new forms of technology! In order to complete class prep we have to log on to moodle.com, an internet site where all of our course requirements and information is uploaded. Last year for one of our papers, adaptive living occupation we had to run a group that focused on games in which we included a Bop-it and Wii. What a learning curve. I’d never played with either of the games before!

IT is used a lot in Occupational therapy, my first fieldwork placement was in paediatrics specifically child development, where videos, cameras and assistive devices like wheelchairs were very commonplace. There are some issues that evolve around OT’s use of technology specifically around keeping images or videos of clients to refer to later.  Yet IT is an amazing tool of practice for occupational therapists, games like Wii and Itoy can and are used to help clients perform some kinds of meaningful occupation. In this YouTube video you can see an OT using Wii as part of their intervention with the client.

 If you can't see this video click here   

It’s amazing just how wide the use of these assistive technology devices is. They allow clients to try things in a safe supported environment.  It really depends on the OT on how they use technology in their practice but defiantly in my mind anyway it is of huge use to OT’s particularly in physical rehabilitation practices.

Last thing and then I’ll let you go, just a quick discussion on ethics.  Information technology really brings ethics and human rights to the forefront of the mind as really as soon as you post something anyone can access and use the information you have provided. It is becoming commonplace now for employers to check prospective employees Facebook or MySpace accounts before hiring and what people put up on the internet stays on the internet.  As an OT student ethics are drummed into us, we must have informed consent before taking photos and state what we are going to do with the photos/ videos. And we must in order to be totally reliable reference other peoples work. 

So that’s it for today! I’ll catch up with you next time!

Beth  = )

Techterms. ( 2012). Infomation technology. Retrieved from http://www.techterms.com/definition/it