Abstract

PAULINO, Danilo Borges; MARTINS, Caio Cabral de Araújo; RAIMONDI, Gustavo Antonio  and  HATTORI, Wallisen Tadashi. WhatsApp^® as a Resource for Health Education: Contextualizing Theory and Practice in a New Teaching-Learning Scenario. Rev. Bras. Educ. Med. [online]. 2018, vol.42, n.1, pp.171-180. ISSN 1981-5271.  https://doi.org/10.1590/1981-52712018v42n1RB20170061.

The present report seeks to share a successful experience of using the WhatsApp® application as a resource for medical education, highlighting the pedagogical and formative potential of social networks, not yet fully utilized by universities. This essay took the form of a class for undergraduate students of the medical course of the Federal University of Uberlândia that was conducted in the popular chat application WhatsApp®. This class had as its main theme Health Education in Media and its objectives were: to evaluate the knowledge previously formed by the students during the course Collective Health Module III and to verify, in practice, the effectiveness of a new social media as a means of Health Education. This Teaching Module focused on working with students' concepts and knowledge on Health Promotion, Popular Education in Health, Health Education, Prevention of diseases and social determinants of the health-sickness-care process. In order for the activity to be in line with the themes addressed in the Module, teachers and students debated whether moving from the classroom to a virtual space would be conducive to learning the theme and after reaching a consensus they collectively constructed the structure of the activity and how it should be conducted. Examples of health education actions conveyed in different media were shared in a WhatsApp® group to which the students and teachers involved were added. These actions aimed to guide the proposed debate, and the activity allowed a fluid and dynamic discussion, with intense contribution of all the participants. At the end of the class the students were very satisfied with the final results and considered the experiment very positive and profitable. This experience shows how new information and communication technologies, especially social networks, have the capacity to improve the teaching-learning process and bring new ways of interaction between educator and learners. We also hope that this report will encourage more teachers and students to explore the pedagogical and formative potential of social networks, which must be fully exploited.

Keywords : Health Education; Medical Education; Information Technology; Social Network; Medicine; Public Health.

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