A Framework for Teaching with Twitter and Storify

The education of baccalaureate health administration students needs to be adaptable in this age of healthcare reformation and the use of social media can be an educational tool that not only presents a familiar communication environment, but also encourages the learner to adapt this tool to their discipline of study. To examine the utility and effectiveness of implementing social media to teach basic epidemiology concepts, the use of Twitter and Storify in the laboratory component of the course is presented. The purpose of this article is to describe three learning exercises that are part of the application course modules developed to increase student knowledge and skills with respect to how epidemiological principles are evident in the community in which the student lives. Specifically, the exercises were designed to: (1) demonstrate how social media is useful to research discipline-specific content; (2) curate relative course material from numerous social media sources; and (3) communicate to one's broader community the significance of specific epidemiologic-oriented issues that affect our everyday life. At the conclusion of the labs, students reported that they had not previously considered the use of social technology for learning; were likely to include Twitter and Storify as part of their online research tools for future assignments; and were more apt to communicate with peers and the instructor via these mediums. The benefits of this applied learning approach for students and the faculty instructor are discussed.