Group Admins
Description
Session Description
To be effective clinicians in Prosthetics and Orthotics, patient assessment skills are core skills that our students are required to master. Typically this is troublesome to our students. During demonstration sessions the student are busy taking notes on patient assessment procedures and in the process, miss essential elements of the patient assessment demonstration. This has a detrimental effect on their practical performance and efficiency in clinical sessions. With this in mind the author sought to investigate if there are any apps that might address the problem identified.
A simple solution to the difficulties relating to observing and note taking of patient assessment skills is video, however these needed to be easily accessible to the students, ideally short in duration (to maintain the students attention) and preferably located all in one place. Padlet met all these requirements. A series of short videos no longer than a minute long were posted on the Padlet with the name of the clinical test as the title. The Padlet was then posted on the class Snapchat tutorial group chat, this meant the students had ease of access to the material with one click and could access it anywhere, any time. The feedback received with regards to using Padlet in this way was overwhelmingly positive. In the module evaluation forms multiple students highlighted how useful the videos embedded in Padlet were to enhance their confidence and patient assessment skills. The ease of access of the videos meant that students were able to engage easily with the content outwith the University setting, at home or on the bus! An example of technology having a wider impact on learning, increasing the opportunity to engage with this content, the mastery of which is essential to become a successful clinician.
Snapchat has a bad reputation with regards to the way in which some users have chosen to use it the fact that the images can disappears after 10 seconds has led to some people sending inappropriate pictures. Failing that it is used to add filters to pictures to make you look better – or like a bunny! Snapchat is misunderstood, one of the aims of this session is to bust the myths highlight Snapchats true value in Higher Education. In fact, Snapchat has been used successfully to create a learning community to bridge formal and informal learning where students are at ease communicating with the author and each other (Greenhow and Lewis 2016), this involved one tutor and three year groups with up to 32 students in each Snapchat group. This ‘worked’ because the author asked the students where they wanted to communicate with the author. Findings from a study currently in progress: Analysis of the Use of Snapchat as a Tutorial Tool in Higher Education will also be presented. According to data from Statistica, 77% of respondents between the age of age 18-24 years stated that they are Snapchat users. If you want to communicate with the students ‘where they are’ this session will be of interest to you.
References
Greenhow, C and C.Lewin (2016). Social media and education reconceptualizeing the boundaries of formal and informal learning. Learning Media and Technology 41 (1): 6-30.
(2018) Share of Snapchat users in the United Kingdom (UK) in January 2018, by age group. Statistica. Avaiable at: https://www.statista.com/statistics/611255/snapchat-users-in-the-united-kingdom-uk-by-age-group/ [12 March 2018].
