Syringes, Mario and virtual reality: Technology’s evolution in 70 years of nursing

Half a century ago, Boise State nursing faculty gathered around two shared computers during lunch breaks, tentatively learning to use a mouse. Today, they're pioneering artificial intelligence and virtual reality in the classroom.

From glass syringes to electronic medical records, "faculty had to keep current with technology," said Pam Springer, faculty from 1989-2013 with a front row seat to the program's mid-years of evolution. The tools of nursing education have transformed dramatically, but the program's 70-year old commitment to relationships and accessible learning has never wavered.

Former nursing faculty Nancy Otterness and Carol Fountain were featured in a 1990 issue of Boise State's 'Focus' magazine for their innovative interactive video used to teach nursing students.

Computers shake things up

These days, computers and online classes don't seem revolutionary. But when they first arrived, they were the biggest change faculty had experienced.

The school kept its first computers - all two of them - in the faculty lunch area. Instructors played "Mario is Missing!" and "Snooper Troops" over their lunch breaks as a way to learn how to use a mouse and computer for the first time.

"So to go from that to online teaching was pretty dramatic," Springer said.

Nursing students used touch screen education technology in 1991. Courtesy of Albertsons Library archives.

Carol Fountain, a '64 alum and faculty from 1977-99, also remembers the faculty's mixed feelings about it.

"We would start playing it during lunch hour and people went, 'Computers? No, I'm not going to do anything like that,'" Fountain said.

Except it didn't take long for them to come around, she remembers. Pretty soon, those same instructors were saying, "Hey, I finished lunch. Can I play?"

Amy Spurlock, the current JoAnna "Jody" DeMeyer Endowed chair in nursing, also fondly remembers the arrival of internet access in 1997.

Pam Springer, faculty from 1989-2013, held multiple leadership roles in the School of Nursing and College of Health Sciences before retiring. Pictured here in 2010, Springer experienced the middle years of the school's technological advancements as faculty became proficient online educators.

"We had computers in our office, but we got modems so we could 'surf the net,'" she said. "Pam Gehrke and I, we heard about this thing called Ask Jeeves. You could just type a question and then ask it, and you would get an answer. I have a clear memory of Pam and I in my office asking Jeeves things, and we just thought it was the coolest thing!"

Becoming experts in online education

Like most big changes, adapting to digital advancements was not easy.

Ingrid Brudenell, faculty between 1981-2010, remembers the challenge of moving to an online learning management system. It felt sudden, she said, to transition away from using overhead projectors. "You had to get everything online, so you could share it," Brudenell said. "Technology changed everything."

Pam Gehrke, pictured here in 1990, designed and taught the first online course in the College of Health Sciences. She retired in 2022.

Transitioning to online teaching was a next level challenge. But nursing faculty were early adopters, learning not just how to do it but how to do it well.

Pam Gehrke designed and taught the College of Health Sciences' very first online class in 1998, and now, Boise State faculty are experts in online education. This is perhaps best seen through the Online RN-BS Completion program.

Innovative for its time, the program launched in 2008 amid skepticism that it would be successful. But faculty are committed to delivering the highest quality online instruction and student support. Their dedication and proficiency shows: more than 3,200 nurses nationwide have earned their bachelor's degrees through the program since it began.

Pat Taylor in 1994 teaching a recorded class via Instructional Television For Students. Courtesy of Albertsons Library archives.

Faculty snapshot: Pat Taylor's 'TV class'

Pat Taylor, who taught from 1975-2007, considered her biggest success the "TV class," she said.

Boise State started broadcasting KAID-TV, a PBS affiliate, on campus in 1973, and in 1986, Instructional Television For Students, or ITFS, began. Student handbooks from the era describe ITFS as "a low power microwave television broadcasting service that delivers live interactive instruction to off-campus sites in Boise, Nampa and Mountain Home. The ITFS facilities also videotape courses for use in remote locations."

Pat Taylor teaching in 1994. Courtesy of Albertsons Library archives.

Taylor taught her pathophysiology course in a recorded IFTS session for multiple decades, she estimates. Not only could people watch Taylor's class live, but video tapes were mailed to neighboring areas so learners could watch them on their own schedule. It was the early days of asynchronous classes and remote learning!

"The hardest thing for me was always the people I knew at the hospital," Taylor said. "They were watching me and I couldn't see them. Oh, they were having a good time, too."

"But it was so convenient for them," she said, shrugging off any embarrassment she might have felt: learners' access to education was more important.

Nursing education tools evolve

As technology advanced, so did the tools that nurses used.

For Barbara Eno, who taught from 1957-1984, the most innovative tool during her nursing years was the plastic syringe. Instead of the sterile single-use tools used today, nurses used glass syringes that needed to be sterilized between uses.

Nursing students started learning how to use EPIC, industry-standard software for electronic patient records, in 2023. Learning the software in school makes the onboarding process easier after they graduate and begin careers as new nurses.

Joann Springer recalls using glass syringes at St. Luke's when "I had to bundle them up and send them down to the autoclave," she said.

For other nurse faculty working before the 1980s, they remember only having to wear gloves during sterile procedures. "Before HIV, we never wore gloves to draw blood," said Springer.

Charting online using electronic medical records and scanning in medications was also a technological challenge of the not-to-distant past.

Sarah Llewellyn and Kelley Connor have published research with other nursing faculty about using artificial intelligence in nursing education.

Current faculty - like Sarah Llewellyn and Kelley Connor - remember using paper charts, handwriting notes and faxing prescription orders to the pharmacy during their early parts of their careers in the late '90s and early 2000s.

"A lot of people did quit at that time when things started becoming digital," said Connor, faculty since 2006. "They're like, 'I'm not doing it.'"

But Boise State's faculty have largely been ahead of the curve. As technology advances, faculty have embraced the possibility of artificial intelligence and virtual reality as educational tools.

The School of Nursing acquired two VR headsets through a grant in 2025. The immersive education allows students to interacts with a virtual human, then switch places and rewatch their conversation. This enhances self-reflection and helps them learn skills like communication or de-escalation.

And while the Simulation Center uses high-fidelity manikins and audio-visual equipment for modern experiences, the scenarios remain rooted in real people's stories.

"Over the past 70 years, Boise State nursing has experienced tremendous change, and yet, many things have remained constant," said Connor, divisional dean of the School of Nursing. "One thing that has never changed is the value we place on relationships. Whether it's student-to-student, student-to-faculty, or nurse-to-patient, it's the relationships we have that make a difference. These relationships have shaped our history and continue to guide our future."

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