Social Networking in Health Education

Social networking is transforming the way we interact with friends, family, colleagues and total strangers. Distance is no longer a barrier to collaboration and the exchange of information and ideas, for better or for worse. Passing notes at the back of the classroom has been replaced by the Internet back channel. What was once private is now in the public eye. Social networking technology presents new challenges and opportunities for both teacher and student. The educational process must either adapt to new opportunities or face new threats.

In this Unconference, we will aim to address current issues in social networking in healthcare education, including:

• What social networks are students and teachers using and how do they impact healthcare education and practice?
• Is it ever advisable for us to mix our private online life with our professional life?
• Do social networks present a threat to healthcare professionalism?
• How does the democratisation of information and knowledge affect education?
• How might social networks help education, training and research to evolve in new directions?

Notes and Questions raised during the session

To what extent is social media currently integrated into the learning environment

• Students post questions on wiki
• Wiki-friendly
• We would be the last ones to know the answer
• Social media belongs to the students
• Institutions need to fit into the student's learning environment, rather than them fit into what we provide
• How do we handle quality assurance of information available on social media?
• Is peer review a sufficient guarantee of quality? Is not being peer reviewed automatically a sign that something is not correct?
• If Wikipedia is wrong, why not go in and fix it yourselves?
• Encourage use of recognised specialised databases
• Students will find the easiest way to achieve their goals. Social networking represents the easiest way for them to work together and share knowledge.
• Teach students to be critical readers. More errors in Encyclopedia Britannica than on Wikipedia in some instances.
• Institutional policy does not cater for web 2.0.
• Need to guide students' use of web 2.0, to ensure information remains accurate

When and where is it acceptable for students or even teachers to post pictures of a "night at the pub?"

• If everybody is doing this, will there be a cultural shift that makes it acceptable?
• How do we warn people about this?
• Amongst users of a social network, there is a general acceptance of the "net-iquette"
• Discuss and debate appropriate use of social media with students
• Institutions have to relinquish some of the perceived power
• How can we encourage institutions to open up and lead by example?
• Constantly shifting privacy settings
• Can schools provide their own social networking tools?
• Struggle to get students using school-controlled social networking tools
• Educate students about the dangers
• How can faculty be encouraged to use and become familiar with social networking tools
• Large web 2.0 tools/social bookmarking helps to promote the best resources

Will formalizing social networking into the curriculum ruin its value to students?

• Students like that social networking is THEIR space. If institutions get involved, students will abandon that space.
• Would tutors accept students as friends on a social network?
• Perhaps a page dedicated to this use, for students to contact a tutor
• Distinction between spaces for dedicated purposes i.e. LinkedIn and Facebook
• Incorporate social media into tools such as VPs
• Anonymous v Non-anonymous social networks
• How long will external tools remain available? What happens if they shut down?
• Open source VLEs embed social tools into their resources, other larger tools struggle to keep up
• Struggle to get students to contribute to formalised learning networks
• Being up-front with students about relative expertise in new tools creates a shared camaraderie
• Using Twitter to collaborate: one person seeing a presentation can be prompted to request info via Twitter
• How do we gauge the success of using social networking?
• How do we know we are making best use of social media?
• TWOLER, https://sites.google.com/a/staff.westminster.ac.uk/twoler/