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Social media & learning• Social media can provide a personal

learning environment that supports collaborations between learners, experts, and resources (Downes, 2009)

• Learning is self-directed and informal (Haythornthwaite & De Laat, 2010)

• Learners can share what they’ve learned with other learners (Dabbagh & Kitsantas, 2012)

#hcsmca

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Healthcare Social Media Canada: #hcsmca

• Tweet chat started in September 2010 by Colleen Young, health community manager

• Weekly chats (Wednesdays 1pm EST)• Recent topics: – “What’s your relationship with privacy?”– “What does caring mean when it comes to

social media in medicine?” – “Help shape digital health week”– “Learning digital health in school and on the

job”#hcsmca

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#hcsmca network 2012

Gruzd & Haythornthawaite, 2013

#hcsmca

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Data collection• 24 Semi-structured interviews (avg. 35

min) with #hcsmca-ers and Colleen Young• Asked questions . . . – to determine depth of participation– about their motivations for participating– about motivators identified in previous

literature• interest in the topic• learning• relationship development

#hcsmca

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How do #hcsmca community members learn?

*Some interviewees have chosen to be identified by their real names/Twitter IDs #hcsmca

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I end up going there and gathering different perspectives. I think that’s the real main key of it–it’s just such a diverse group of participants that you would never get to interact with otherwise. So you’re not just like in your little bubble of one perspective, you’re getting to see all the different perspectives on one thing. –Christina

#hcsmca

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I almost feel like anybody who’s a patient in Canada should know about that group and follow it because you feel less isolated and at the mercy of the system, like you understand it better. You’re not afraid of it . . . You know there are people to go to in the group if you have an issue and they would welcome it. They would welcome you. If you’re a patient like me with cognitive impairment and you have a situation and you can’t think of how to handle it there are people in that group who know how. So you could shoot them a message, like “can I talk to you about this?” and they would be able to give you advice. Not medical advice, but the steps to take or how to approach a situation in the healthcare system. That’s really invaluable. And all the people are there because they care. –Grace#hcsmca

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I think I’ve got a fair bit of knowledge in this area so I’d like to contribute that; so it is important for me to provide input when I can. –Pat

#hcsmca

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I appreciate hearing the perspectives of patients and non-doctors. So I tune in primarily because I like to listen in and get a different perspective on things. That helps me, in my view, plan services; it helps me respond to patients in the office, it helps me with what we do with our Quinte Pediatric work online. And if it’s a topic that I can additionally add some information or my input, that’s great. But I don’t go there to try to have a platform or to speak or to present, I go there to learn. Really listen and learn.–@drpauldempsey from @quintepediatric

#hcsmca

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#hcsmca network 2012

Gruzd & Haythornthawaite, 2013#hcsmca

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Is the community’s learning process enabled by Twitter?

#hcsmca

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Twitter is just extremely accessible. It’s very quick. People do have some skepticism around the length of the messages that people are able to write, but there’s a lot of efficiency in keeping your comments to 140 characters. It’s a really level playing field for that as well. It sure makes you succinct! –Colleen (community manager)

#hcsmca

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Twitter is really becoming a forum to rapidly share information–Andrew

Hashtagging has become a way to aggregate learning processes and learning opportunities, as well as go back and look at things historically, and for me that’s important.–Trish

#hcsmca

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It’s easier for me to to meet people and talk to people online than it is to talk to them in person. I mean it seems more egalitarian doesn’t it? . . . I mean you’re influenced so much by the way people look, right? And so if you’re like young and vibrant and well dressed and you have great shoes, you’re going to get a different response than if you’re like older and maybe a little stooped and your shoes are ugly . . . So I like that that’s not what happens so much on Twitter. –Annette#hcsmca

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I actually don’t enjoy the chats at all. I find them very stressful. The information comes so quickly and it’s really hard to follow up at the time. You’ve read a comment and processed it and you want to add a reply, or add a comment, the conversation has kind of moved on and you have like, seven more thoughts to process and you get different conversations and different streams going on. It’s very cognizantly taxing and I find it very difficult. It causes a lot of anxiety or stress so that’s why I really tend to avoid them. I don’t get much out of them.–Kelly#hcsmca

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A lot of people said to us they were interested in the subject matter, they liked the idea that it was community but the Twitter thing was, you know, it was just scratching the surface. And that’s the thing that we all talk about is like how much can you say in 140 characters and what are we missing by just limiting ourselves to that form?–Rachel #hcsmca

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Summary• Through #hcsmca Tweet chats, community

members . . . – gained access to diverse and trustworthy ideas and

people– were able to access the knowledge of experts and

share their own expertise• Communicating through Twitter . . .

– helped some but hindered others– is supplemented by regular in-person meet-ups

Next Steps . . .– Explore other motivations for participation– Explore motivations by participation weight– Identify patterns of motivation within and between

crowds and communities#hcsmca

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AcknowledgementsThanks to:

– Interview participants– Colleen Young– Caroline Haythornthwaite– SSHRC & GRAND NCE

Citations• Dabbagh, N. & Kitsantas, A. (2012) Personal Learning Environments, social media, and

self-regulated learning: A natural formula for connecting formal and informal learning. The Internet and Higher Education 15(1), 3–8.

• Downes, S. (2007). Learning networks in practice. In D. Ley (Ed.), Emerging Technologies for Learning Volume 2. (pp. 19–27). London: British Educational Communications and Technology Agency.

• Gruzd, A. & Haythornthwaite, C. (2013). Enabling community through social media. JournalOfMedicalInternetResearch 15(10), e248. doi: 10.2196/jmir.2796.

• Haythornthwaite, C. & De Laat, M. (2010). Social networks and learning networks: Using social network perspectives to understand social learning. In L. Dirckinck-Holmfeld L, V. Hodgson, C. Jones C, et al. (Eds.), Proceedings of the 7th International Conference on Networked Learning 2010, Aalborg, Denmark. (pp. 183–190).

#hcsmca