Week 3- Blog Post #5- Social Media

I have heard the term Social Media before but was not quite sure what the term actually meant. According to Wikipedia social media is defined as: "media designed to be disseminated through social interactions, created using highly accessible and sociable publishing techniques. Social Media supports the human need for social interactions, using Internet- and Web-based technologies to transform broadcast media monologues into social media dialogues. It supports the democratization of knowledge and information, transforming people from content consumers into content producers (Wikipedia 2009)." My favorite part of that quote is the last line about consumers becoming producers; and I guess that’s what social media does.

A form of Social Media that I found on www.eschoolnews.com (2009), is that about the Santa Clara, Calif., County Health Department. They are putting together an educational campaign for area high schools that use social media to teach students how to guard against swine flu, reports the San Jose Mercury News. According to county health officer Marty Fenstersheib, 17 is the median age of swine flu victims. So the health department soon will be sending a "toolkit" to area high schools outlining a campaign that will use social media, such as a YouTube video contest, to develop flu prevention messages. The toolbox also will include materials and information to help students run their own peer-to-peer education campaign. According to Los Gatos-Saratoga High School District assistant superintendent Bob Mistele, "We've communicated to teachers the same commonsense precautions they would take for the regular flu. When a student contracts the flu, the student goes home." Mistele said if the county health department determines there is indeed a swine flu threat, the district is prepared: "We've really tried to prepare should this escalate. We'll utilize eMail to all the parents and our school messenger [phone] system. We won't be sending any notes home with students--that's not effective. For high school students, Facebook and Twitter are the most effective forms of communication." I think this will be the way news is delivered to students and parents. Forget the hundreds of thousands of documents students receive each year. Go wireless and save some trees.

Reference:

http://enwikipedia.org/wiki/Social_media. Found September 18, 2009.

Schools Using Media to Educate Students About Swine Flu. Found September 18, 2009 at http://www.eschoolnews.com.