Workshop

Purpose and Rationale:

Social media tools have the potential to transform our learning environments and engage our learners in new ways. Medical educators need to understand, master, and innovate using social media, not only to better engage learners in the 21st century, but also to teach the new generation of physicians best practices on how to use these tools. Unfortunately, few medical educators are accustomed to using social media in their daily practice. Use of social media may also be hindered by misconceptions and myths regarding the use of the use of the technology, lack of basic knowledge regarding social media platforms, and time to learn techniques to integrate social media into medical education. Therefore, the goal of this workshop is empower participants with the necessary knowledge and skills to use basic four basic social media tools in medical education, led by workshop faculty who are “super-users” of these technologies.

Participants will become familiar with basic social media tools, their various uses in medical education, and practice hands-on social media skills in small groups. Participants will also discuss the challenges and barriers of implementation of these tools and generate possible solutions.

Learner Assessment:

• Objective #1: Participants’ generation of the Innovation List will reflect their understanding of the capabilities of each social media tool.
• Objective #2: Participants will debate the pro’s and con’s of implementing a specific example of using a social media tool in medical education.
• Objective #3: Participants will demonstrate specific social media skills at each station, as outlined under Format/Methods.

Participants will also complete a brief assessment of their likelihood of using the social media tools used in the workshop in their medical education activities at the conclusion of the session.