Social media, the democratisation of knowledge and physiotherapy. Can they play nice together?

I’d like to begin a system of publishing reviews of academic textbooks for physiotherapists and physiotherapy students. This could eventually be expanded to include journal articles, websites and other useful sources of information. Ultimately, I’d like to get the students themselves to take part in this process, informing their own learning through a deeper interaction with the content, rather than merely through the passive reception of information.

I’ve come to realise that very few of the students in my department actually make use of textbooks. The principle reason is that they’ve come to think that the course readers provided by the department are sufficient for their academic requirements. However, I believe that course readers should be seen as providing only an introduction to the subject, a basic foundation upon which further knowledge can be built.

Another reason students are reluctant to buy textbooks is that they are prohibitively expensive for the average student, especially at this particular university. By providing not only lists but reviews and summaries of the most recent and relevant textbooks, I hope that students can be guided to making informed choices regarding the textbooks they purchase. Reviews of individual chapters can also guide students as to where they should direct their focus for a particular module.

On a side note, the high cost of access to information is one of the reasons I have such high regard for the concept of open content i.e. the idea that knowledge (or at least, information) should be free or placed under reasonable constraint e.g. by using Creative Commons licenses. I’ll be returning to this subject in more detail during the course of this blog.