I use this twitter to connect professionally, as well as for tweeting at conferences (I am learning it is actually quite fun). I follow mostly EM doctors and FOAM-ed (Free Open Access Medical Education) people. I use my twitter as an educational source, somewhere to get additional information and learn on the fly. I regularly search the #FOAM to see what is going on in that world. I also use # for conferences to follow along. (the application TweetDeck is great for this!)
I help manage another twitter account @UCIrvineEM, it is our residency programs twitter where we post bit-sized Emergency Medicine FOAM-ed facts, typically twice a day. I actually find this to be a bit more fun.
Overall I can see the educational benefits for twitter, and am slowly learning to enjoy it!
Q1: Do you or do you not use twitter for educational purposes, why or why not?
A1: As I said above I do, but mostly only for my education, I need to work on having a better social media presence and posting more education facts to my personal twitter. I think it is a great educational opportunity, be it to give reminders about papers/tests or to provide educational snippets.
Q2: What problems do you see yourself encountering if you choose to use twitter for educational purposes?
A2: I think that if I were to post education tidbits on my personal account I might become quickly overwhelmed trying to have enough content and posting regularly. I prefer to consume with my personal account and post with our residency account (because several of us manage it, its easier to have posts regularly).
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I really like to bake. I made this cake for my besties wedding! The base is a Guinness chocolate cake, the middle is almond weeding cake and the top is red velvet!
Likewise. I too didn't get the appeal of Twitter initially. It didn't seem "real" to me either; I found it to be more "noise" than content. This class prompted me to do a little more investigating and I'm still discovering the possibilities. The breadth and depth of information available is mind-numbingly expansive.
ReplyDeleteI do, however, get the appeal of all your baked goodies! So what are you bringing to class on our last day? ;-)
I think your hardcore educational use has a lot to do with your current position in life. You are well established and are aware of using the social medium for professional purposes. You also bring the important point that essentially everyone in your field has it and is actively using it. So I guess we all should adopt Twitter as a standard communication medium.
ReplyDeleteI think that Twitter can be a great educational resource for both students and teachers. Teachers really need to take the time to explore and find what will work for them and their class when using Twitter and even how to go about using it.
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