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

Just a quick link to update my concerns over the heinous new Facebook terms of service.  It basically grants Facebook the right to do whatever they want with your content…forever…even if you delete it…or close your account.  It does seem to be subject to your privacy settings, so if you are uploading content to the site, make sure you’re careful about what you designate as publically viewable.

The founder of Facebook has assured users that “we wouldn’t share your information in a way you wouldn’t want” and the article does urge users to “…just calm down”, so I guess it’s OK.

Here are a few links:
http://consumerist.com/5150175/facebooks-new-terms-of-service-we-can-do-anything-we-want-with-your-content-forever?skyline=true&s=x

http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2009/02/17/2493500.htm

Note:  Facebook has reverted to it’s old terms of service in the wake of the public outcry.

A few months ago, I wrote about the use of blogging as a reflective tool.  I’ve since developed an assignment for the Professional Ethics in Physiotherapy module I teach, in which students will blog as a form of reflection on some of the topics we cover in class.

Every student will then read every other students posts and provide commentary that I hope will seep out of the blogging environment and into the classroom.  I think it’s important that the ideas and concepts discussed online become living things outside the online space.  Cross commenting and the discussion of various ethical dilemmas presented could also highlight the role of culture, background, religion, etc. on their differing perspectives or worldviews.

Ultimately I’d like to demonstrate to the students the idea knowledge can be constructed through interaction and that discourse and social media platforms are great tools to facilitate this process.  I’m hoping to evaluate the assignment after it’s completion in a few months and then write an article on our (the students and my) shared experiences.

I’ve started a few projects in my department, one of which revolves around the use of wikis to create environments for students to engage more dynamically with both the content and each other.  The rationale is that deeper learning occurs when there is an understanding of the content that goes beyond the ability to recite tracts of it back to the teacher.  Another component incorporates the idea of social constructivism, which asserts that knowledge is created through social interactions, where groups build knowledge for themselves and for each other.

It seems that a wiki is an appropriate platform that fits well with this concept.  It allows collaboration from many students, separated in geography and time, to build on each others’ contributions leading towards the completion of a shared goal, all the while encouraging discussion around the content and structure of the content.  In my Applied Physiotherapy class, I’ve put aside a small section of the OpenPhysio website in order to evaluate the process.  Each group must complete an article on an appropriate topic assigned to them, as well as provide a critical review of another group’s topic.  They are also encouraged to make small grammatical and spelling corrections on any other topic they read.

I’m hoping that the process will highlight the benefits of truly working together as a group, as well as of the peer review and drafting processes.  Students should be more aware of how to structure documents with regular feedback, not only from the facilitator but also from each other.  The ability of the wiki to track changes over time will provide valuable information about how the document grows, who makes contributions, the challenges of group dynamics and a host of other data that might be useful in forming a more academic picture of the use of new technology in education.