The recent history of nurse education has involved continuous change and development. This study, however, took place
at a time when transformation in both the education environment and health settings was accelerating. The study
respondents entered the nursing profession at a time of rapid technological change with significant policy initiatives being
introduced concerning the health service and e-learning. Nursing students could not anticipate the impact of these as they
entered their education and were puzzled by the dissonance that they experienced. The study findings suggest that
attention needs to be paid within curricular planning as to how nursing students manage the entry to university and
practice. Different groups of students may need different activities to develop their use and incorporation of ICT skills for
education. The challenge remains to reach the point where the technology becomes transparent [51] in the same manner
that, for example, mobile phones have. Currently the pace of change with technology is advancing so rapidly that it is very
difficult to predict and plan for future skills profiles. How students negotiate the boundary between pre-university ICT and
that used in universities and the health services will depend on the interaction of a range of factors as they move through
induction and acclimatisation to nurse education