MEDEV

School of Medical Sciences Education Development

The lovely Anne-Marie Cunningham (on Twitter = @amcunningham) has just brought this to my attention on Twitter - it's dated in June so, clearly, I missed it the first time around!

This is a charmingly titled blog 'A gentle introduction to Twitter for the apprehensive academic' which explains exactly what twitter is and can be used for.

At MEDEV we use twitter a LOT.  With such a small team to cover the UK, we can't all be in the same place at the same time so the twitter feeds from myself and the team allow us to keep in touch with other and find out what's going on in other places.  For example, if Suzanne is away at a conference and she tweets something like:

Am at the *** conference and Prof. *** *** is speaking about [insert topic here]. 

I can reply:

"Could you ask this question about *** ***?"

Which she will then try to do. 

• Just for info, MEDEV has its own twitter stream which you can subscribe to (or 'follow') for information and events details. 

Personally, I love Twitter.  I 'follow' comedians, actors, authors, academics - just anyone I find interesting, really.  I tweet work things and personal things so my profile is a bit of a mashup. However, by using particular search terms (or hash tags) within Twitter you can reveal a mine of information; articles, links, blogs, etc. about one particular topic.  For example, if I search on the hash tag #ukoer (which is the tag for open educational resources in the UK) - just click here and you'll see what it produces. (Myself and the vet schools are now using #veted - it's going quite well so far!).

Twitter is very useful and unobtrusive - there are many days when I forget to look at it but it's then possible to miss something as there is soooooo much going on! 

Just my humble opinion. 

Go on...read the blog I mention above, then give it a try - you know you want to!

:D