5 Things You May Not Know About Text Messaging in Medical Education

If you use your mobile phone to text on a regular basis like I do, chances are that you’re pretty comfortable with the “ins and outs” of texting. But when it comes to using texting in higher education (ie, medical education), especially to a healthcare audience, there are a few key things to keep in mind.

5.  Do Not Reinvent the Pedagogical Wheel

As text messaging is so new to our space, we have yet to develop  “best-in-class” pedagogical principles for  mobile learning (we’re probably a few years away from this).   But the good news is that we can use many of the principles we’ve developed from online and computer based learning.

Medscape provides a well-organized description of these principles for review.

4.  Text Messaging in Medical Education is not a “Be All, End All”

Texting in a medical education program should always be utilized as an enabling tool, and not as a replacement for any particular format or methodology that you’ve typically used in a program (ie, mails/faxes for recruitment or a CD-ROM or monograph for content). Just as you wouldn’t provide one print or electronic  format  to an audience, it would be presumptuous to think that mobile messaging would be the answer to all of our prayers.

3.  But…Text Messaging in Medical Education IS Multifocal

Text messages for learning can be utilized in a number of ways (the big 3 buckets being Recruitment, Education, and Assessment). But how exactly do we do any of these?  Most immediately think of recruitment solutions, but texting can go beyond awareness building.  Some “out-of-the-box” examples of using text-messaging as an educational/informational tool include:

—  Course Updates: General information about a course, its requirements, timelines, resources, etc.

—  Competition: Asking your learners to submit a case study concept for an upcoming meeting.The learner with the winning case study is recognized during the meeting and the presentation of their case.

—  Weekly “Hot” Topics: Topics designed to stimulate discussion, debate and interaction, and  centered around the program learning objectives (these can even be posted to twitter, for ‘archiving’ purposes).

—  “Conference” Messages: Messages are sent out to the entire learner audience. When a learner responds, the message is sent to the entire group, promoting discussion and learning. Think “microblogging” with a purpose.

2.  Yes, there is a ‘Textiquette’, aka Text Messaging Etiquette

Understanding proper ‘textiquette’, goes a long, long way to ensuring participation, learning and interactivity. For example, providing clear information through collateral materials on why, how and when they should participate is useful.  Or having internal operational guidelines for when you’re going to send messages, (ie Monday through Friday 9 am to 5 pm), how many questions in a survey, how often to send them etc, are  useful as well.

Note:  You should make sure that your text messaging partner provides these as a resource and is able to walk you through the planning and implementation of the first couple of programs .

1.  Text Messaging Should Be Integrated with Other Platforms

We’re in an age where we see new formats, methodologies, and apps (the iTunes app store averages 4,111 new apps per month) providing us with innovative and convenient ways to do things we thought couldn’t get any easier.  Integrating these into our lives adds more value to what we do or accomplish every day.

The same approach applies with text messaging. Integrating other platforms and systems provides a more robust engagement and interactive learning experience.  Forward-leaning text message partners (like us!) should  provide:

— Integration with twitter, allowing you to present twitter polls or twitter feedback slides (you can post feedback to both twitter AND a live PowerPoint presentation instantly in real-time;

—  Text-to-screen features, where you can conduct a live, ARS-styled survey/poll in multiple locations  and have the results show up in your PowerPoint presentation as bar or pie charts;

— A real time “live-audience meter” integrated into PowerPoint, which visually tracks the ‘mood’ of the audience, by having them text a number between 1 and 5 (pro – con) when participating in debate-themed programs.

And if you’re looking for more detailed insight into how you or your organization can use text messaging, reach out to us!