Use of blog as a supplementary study material resource in dentistry: An Indian experience

Abstract

Objective: Social networking sites (SNS) are emerging as an alternate teaching resource. The reach and access characteristics of SNS for a noninstitutional, academic blog in an Indian setting has not been documented and this manuscript aim to address this lacunae. Materials and Methods: A blog for oral histology, an integral basic dental subject and its Facebook promotional page was created. The access characteristics were observed using Google analytics. The Facebook promotional pages of the blog access characteristics are presented. Results: A total of 582 people visited the blog during the study period. Majority of them used Google Chrome from desktop/laptop to access the blog. There were 2723 page visits in all. Visitors from 36 countries and 99 cities across the globe accessed the blog. In all through Facebook, the promotional page reached 36,543 people. The total number of people engaged through Facebook promotion page was 10,757. Conclusion: Access characteristics of the noninstitutional, academic blog have been described for the first time in dentistry. The lessons learnt through this exercise would be helpful in designing e-mentoring courses as well promotional pages of such events in the future. The necessity of making the mentors and students to adapt to e-learning and digital learning resources before drawing such programs is highlighted.

Keywords

• E-learning and Facebook, Google, Indian blog, oral histology and tooth morphology, oral histology dental blog