The Role of Social Media in Dental Education
Dental students all around the globe have one goal, passing their degrees or diplomas and they build a strong career as a renowned dentist. However, the curriculum may seem never-ending and the dental continuing education may sometimes be burdening.
As you probably know, the teacher cannot cover the whole curriculum in class, so students also have to take the initiative and start exploring other study methods. This generation may seem to never stop being on social media and some believe that it’s the reason behind lower grades.
However, social media, also known as web 2.0, can be used to the student’s advantage. What is the role of social media in dental education? Let’s find out the role of social media in dental education.
Facebook role of social media in dental education
Facebook has the ability to connect a lot of people at once worldwide and this platform can perform this task seamlessly. All you have to do is forget your timeline and use your time fruitfully using this online platform to your advantage. Since the conception of this social media platform, it had the Facebook group option and you can use that option to improve your studies.
You can open a group and invite your friends on it so that you can share notes and study together. This will also help those who fell sick and couldn’t attend classes not to miss out on much. Studying as a group always helps you understand some concepts of your dental course easier.
Hearing different opinions on the matter is beneficial to ensure that you understand the curriculum. According to a study, 83.6% of students look for new announcements on social media. By using this platform, you stay updated and you have the option of posting a question and then receive as many comments as the other participants like to post on that particular post.
This is an organized way of receiving information because the questions, notes, and papers posted there and comments relative to them won’t get mixed.
The membership to Facebook groups is not limited and has no borders so you can get to connect with other dental students in the world. A school community can also be created where a valid school email address can be used to gain access to it. There’s more role of Social Media in Dental Education…let’s find out.
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WhatsApp, the most popular messaging app, is starting to take flight amongst dental students and educators. The Role of Social Media in Dental EducatioThis is because WhatsApp as an education tool has the great features of sending pictures, documents, videos and voice notes instantly.
Another benefit of this app is that it notifies the recipient of the message when a message is sent, which makes the response time faster. As this app is mainly a one on one chatting app, the shy students who fear to ask questions in front of other students can privately ask using it.
You can connect with your educators, your friends and classmates using this app and block any unwanted people who may be stalkers.
WhatsApp is also using the concept of chatting as a group as it has drawn inspiration from Facebook. WhatsApp groups have some benefits over Facebook groups and those benefits are more controlled conversations as it only allows a certain number of participants.
In the group, you can also remove people who post malicious and offensive content if you are a group admin. These groups can be run by the educators or as a private study group run by the students.
You Tube
This online video posting platform is very useful when it comes to educational video content posting. This is a very powerful role of social media. There’s no field that’s not posted on the platform and because of that, it has become easier for both the students and lecturers to teach and be taught.
You can find from short five-minute videos focused on a specific note or full-length lectures in class. If pictures speak a thousand words that mean videos speak a million words. That is true in educational content because if a video is made interactive enough, you can benefit more from the study.
If you miss something during the lecture, you can also scrub back to the point your mind started wandering off and listen carefully again. This means that you also don’t have to take scrupulous notes and try to remember everything because when you get back home, you can watch the lecture again.
Many universities and colleges have started posting videos and lectures online and this helps students in 3rd world countries.
Due to the lack of adequate resources, students may not know as much as a student who went to a college in the U.S, but YouTube videos bridge that gap. This platform offers the same educational content to students all around the globe.
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Conclusion
What is the role of social media in dental education? Social media is revolutionizing dental education and dental continuing education, so all students need to keep up the pace and go along with the developments. After reading this, you now understand how to use your social media channels fruitfully to improve your dental course grades.
The importance of studying as a group cannot be stressed any further and these platforms offer great ways to so. Whether you are a student or lecturer trying to make your life easier, social media is the key. The major benefit of using social media is that you can study anytime anywhere you don’t have to physically group together.
Author Bio:
Elizabeth Skinner is an edutech expert covering online education, both eLearning and mLeraning. She is currently working for Edubirdie.com as the technology consultant. She believes free access to education resources with a single click online will provide equal opportunities to students across the globe. In her free time, she practices yoga, reads fiction novels and cooks Thai food for her family.
You may want to read more of our posts about Social Media. Click on: http://blog.drumup.io/blog/how-to-leverage-native-video-on-fb-linkedin-twitter-instagram/
