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Using Twitter Harnessing the Power of Social Media for Professional Development

James Wolff, MD, MPH, MAT Alejandra Barrero-Castillero MD, MPH. Using Twitter Harnessing the Power of Social Media for Professional Development. What we are going to cover…. Our Twitter Experiment Some Twitter History Twitter Basics Twitter Analytics Benefits and Limitations of Twitter

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Using Twitter Harnessing the Power of Social Media for Professional Development

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  1. James Wolff, MD, MPH, MAT Alejandra Barrero-Castillero MD, MPH Using TwitterHarnessing the Power of Social Media for Professional Development

  2. What we are going to cover…. • Our Twitter Experiment • Some Twitter History • Twitter Basics • Twitter Analytics • Benefits and Limitations of Twitter • Conclusions

  3. Our Course and Students • “Planning and Managing Maternal and Child Health Programs in Low-Resource Countries” • Department of International Health at BUSPH • Mean age of students: 27.5 years • Age range: 21- 48 years • 87% female • 9% foreign nationals

  4. Could Twitter facilitate learning about MCH? • Connect to innovative individual and organizational experience • Update students on current trends • Streamline access to useful MCH information • Strengthen social cohesion of the class

  5. TWITTER HISTORY March 21, 2006 Twitter Today “Just setting up my Twttr” Jack Dorsey (@ Jack) with partners Evan Williams and Biz Stone launched a communications revolution • Each Tweet is 140 characters in length. • Around 300 million users worldwide. • 140 million tweets are sent daily. One billion weekly. • Widely used for politics, marketing, journalism, business, and celebrity gossip.

  6. Our Twitter Assignment . • Asked students to open an account or use their own. • Introduced objectives for using Twitter. • Series of assignments over the first 7 weeks of the course.

  7. Situation at the beginning of the Course • Most common reason of not using Twitter: • “Twitter is not an efficient use of my time”.

  8. Our Twitter Account • Digication-IH887- Twitter Feed

  9. Twitter Analytics:http://foller.me/

  10. General Impressions Benefits Limitations Survey Results

  11. Situation at the END of the Course

  12. What students thought… “I was resistant to Twitter, but it was a beneficial part of the class” “I was very reserved about joining Twitter because I am already on other social networking sites and I thought it would be a waste of my time. But, I have found that I can use Twitter in a different way, to advance my knowledge and connections”. I plan to keep using Twitter. I like how I can keep on top of global news and other people's thoughts on the links they post. It's quite entertaining since the news that is tweeted is picked by you since you pick the people that you follow.”

  13. 2.1 Increased Global Health Knowledge • 85% reported that following experts increased their knowledge. • “When I went on, it was great to see how many people are excited about public health news. It made me want to be more up-to-date on what is going on in my field. I hope I can get more into it to stay on top of what is going on”

  14. 2.2 Exposure to Global Health News • “Twitter exposed me to a lot of breaking public health news… it allows you to connect and synthesize different issues and problems happening on a global level”

  15. 2.3 Interaction Between Students and Experts • “Partners in Health joined a conversation I was having with a classmate about one of their tweets”. • “(I) Tweeted about something PATH did and they started following me and thanked me for my tweet”.

  16. 2.4 Learning How to Use Twitter Professionally • “I think it’s good that I'm comfortable using it in case I need to Tweet about a program or project I'm working on in the future”.

  17. Limitations • Time Constraints • “Maybe I’ll keep on using twitter, but not until I'm done with my MPH and have more time.... it’s definitely not a priority” • Requires Work • Could miss updates/news if you are not checking your news feed frequently making it hard to keep up.

  18. Conclusions • Students like Twitter • Twitter expands access to information and expertise • Twitter offers potential for cross-pollination from other courses • Twitter takes time • The ground rules for using Twitter are still developing.

  19. abarrero@bu.edu jwolff@bu.edu Thanks!

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