OTS 017: Analysis of Online Media Use Among Occupational Therapy Practitioners (Professional Development)
- Jayson Davies
- Nov 4, 2018
- 41 min read
Updated: Mar 23
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Welcome to the show notes for Episode 17 of the OT Schoolhouse Podcast.
The Occupational Therapy Practice Framework notes that "Clients may require access to and the ability to use technology such as cell or smartphones, computers or tablets, and videogame consoles to carry out their daily routines and occupations." (2004).
With this in mind, it is not only important to understand how meaningful it is for our clients and students to access technology and online media, but we also need to understand how we use online media to our personal and professional advantage.
In this episode, Jayson and Abby present their findings on how School-based OTs can utilize online media to improve themselves as an OT practitioner.
Download the Powerpoint that goes with this episode here!
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Be sure to subscribe to the OT Schoolhouse email list & get access to our free downloads of Gray-Space paper and the Occupational Profile for school-based OTs.
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Episode Transcript
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Jayson Davies
Hey there, and welcome back to the OT school house podcast. The otpf states that clients may require access to and the ability to use technology such as cell or smartphones, computers or tablets and video game consoles to carry out their daily routines and occupations. At the OT school house, we totally understand that, and that's why we're diving deep into the use of online media, both social media, as well as other types of media, in order to help school based OTs help their clients and further their education and professional development. So today is actually going to be the first professional development opportunity through the podcast that we've offered in a while, and you can find that at ot schoolhouse.com, forward slash PD, as in professional development. And the objectives for today are for you and everyone out there to understand current trends related to online use among school based OTs, be able to identify locations on the web to find support and guidance, and be able to understand the importance of being self aware when consuming or producing online media. We just actually presented this at a recent conference here in California, and we're excited to be able to share this all with you. So right after the break, we're gonna get into this, and you're gonna hear all the amazing content we have for you. So stick around Abby, and I will be right back.
Amazing Narrator
Hello and welcome to the OT school house podcast. Your source for the latest school based occupational therapy tips, interviews and research now to get the conversation started, here are your hosts, Jayson and Abby. Class is officially in session.
Jayson Davies
Hey there. Welcome to episode number 17 of the OT school house podcast. You know, it's been a while, but Abby and I are on the podcast for the entire show today. There's no guest. It's just her and I. So Abby, how's it going?
Abby Parana
It's going great. This is like a throwback.
Jayson Davies
Yeah, it's been a while. It's been, I don't know. I don't even remember the last episode where it's just you and I.
Abby Parana
No, it's been a long time. We ought to do this more often. Jayson.
Jayson Davies
Yeah. I mean, I know we have a bunch of guests lined up for the for the upcoming shows, but yeah, we really need to do this a little more often. So maybe we can. We'll see what happens. And yeah, so do you have anything that you want to share before we get on our way?
Abby Parana
No, just we finished up with the occupational therapy conference for the state of California, Occupational Therapy Association of California, of California, yes, thanks for adding that so many letters in the title. Okay, so we just finished up that, and then I'm doing an in service on sensory with the teachers at one of my school sites to kind of build capacity with one of my co workers. And we're getting ready to do that. I think it's going to be pretty interesting. I'm hoping to use it and share it with you guys you know, so that you have information on how to provide an in service. If that's something that you want to do for your school sites, or if you have already maybe I can give you some tips on how to do it better. Or maybe you can give me some tips. Maybe my in service isn't going to be that great. Who knows?
Jayson Davies
Are you doing that with another OT or a different professional?
Abby Parana
No another OT? We're talking a lot about how to help students that are dysregulated becoming dysregulated or have or preventing dysregulation. So I kind of think we give the strategies a lot, and we discuss sensory strategies. And the teachers all tend to really know all the strategies, all the tools, they will come to me and say, Hey, I think so and so needs this, and I'll go and look. And maybe they do, maybe they don't, but I think it's almost the implementation of those strategies and using them in an effective way, and then also just noting that, like some strategies you know you can use would be like behavior modification type things too. They kind of all go together. So it's kind of one of those trainings. It's not a is it sensory or behavior? It's actually, you can't really separate the two. That's kind of our approach to this.
Jayson Davies
Yeah, that's cool, because I was actually just talking to a speech therapist and her and I, and actually we're going to see if the psychologist would like to get in on it too. But we want to do a training for both the teachers as well as the AIDS, because a lot of times, you know, we teach the teachers, but then it's the AIDS, and especially those months of your classes that are working with the kids so much, and so aids are going to be at our training. Too. Perfect. That's awesome. Are you guys doing it after school, before school, during school, after school on one of the short days. Oh, very cool. A professional, professional development day, or whatever the school has set up.
Abby Parana
Yeah. And then we're also doing a fine motor one where we're running centers, but they're all fine motor based centers, so do that kind of thing too. It's really exciting.
Jayson Davies
Yeah, excited. I look forward to hearing more about that once you're one. You got it done and taken care of is that, when are you doing that?
Abby Parana
Um, the inserts will be next Tuesday. So when we're finishing up our Well, finishing it up, slash starting it, because we're both procrastinators this week, tomorrow and Thursday, and then we'll be presenting next week. So it's kind of cool, though I'm really excited about it, because we're trying to touch on everything and kind of explain it in a more functional way so that teachers can use it versus, I don't know, I think sometimes it can get a little dicey. You're like, oh, they need proprioception for input, but a teacher doesn't understand. Or like, maybe they don't have the theory and the background of recognizing that, so we want to give them those tools.
Jayson Davies
Yeah, definitely. Well, like Abby said, we also attended the Occupational Therapy Association of California conference, OTEC conference, this past weekend. And thank you, Abby. Anyways, Abby and I, we actually presented, and that's what we are going to talk about today, is actually we're going to present, not the entire slideshow slash presentation, though, that we presented at ot but a good portion of it for you all to hear. And that's actually about how OTs, how school based ot specifically, but this kind of equates to all OTs utilize online media, and also a little bit how, how social media affects not only us, but our students, and how we can kind of act upon online media. So we're going to talk about that. But first, I just want to give a big thank you to anyone out there that was at OT and said hello, or all the presenters out there that were at OT, there's a lot of good school based content this. This year we had OTs. Actually one was from, oh man, I think it was Ohio that came out to talk to us. And we had the one of the OT directors from Los Angeles Unified School District that talked a little bit. We had the Pasadena Unified School District special ed director who was actually an occupational therapist and went back to get her psychology credential and is now the sped director. And that was super inspiring to see an OT in such a high level position. So a big shout out to all those people that made OTEC great, as well as the staff up at OT, which is awesome. So before we get into it, Abby's got her finger waving at me like she's got something to say.
Abby Parana
Well, I justwanted to bring up that we had the really cool opportunity to meet up with, well, kind of a meet up situation with Alexis, who organized it at Rubio's, and it was with you and I and Sarah and Jenna. And it was all of us OTs, kind of discussing how OT is doing online, and what are all of our projects, and how we're advocating for the profession, and sort of what what these little projects are, and they're all doing some really cool things.
Jayson Davies
Yeah, definitely a big shout out to Sarah, actually, she's actually doing a podcast, kind of like you're listening to right now. And her podcast is ot for life, l, y, F, E, and it actually just released last week, by the time you're listening to this podcast. So big shout out to her. She's an early intervention OT, and she's her podcast is not just about ei early intervention. She just has this huge mission for sharing OT, like in all capacities, to all people. And so be sure to subscribe to the OT for life podcast as well as ours. What was Jenna?
Abby Parana
Jenna, she Jenna. She works as a professor.
Jayson Davies
but she's a dementia specialist, right?
Abby Parana
Yes, and she consults with nursing homes. I remember her telling me about that part of her position as well. She kind of does multiple things. She has her hand in lots of different practice areas in occupational therapy, very diverse background. And that was kind of cool to see or hear about.
Jayson Davies
Yeah. And then you have Alexis, who is kind of doing a little bit of everything. She's all over the place. She has a kind of a Facebook Live that she calls ot scope, or the podcast project. That's kind of one of the areas she's in, but she's really dabbing a little bit of everything she's on social media at eight. Alexis Joel, and we'll put a link to that in the show notes at ot schoolhouse.com, forward slash episode 17. But yeah, it was just really cool meeting up with these group of OTs that are doing so much in the profession. I mean, we're all kind of, you know, quote, unquote, younger OTs, and we're we're able to access the internet, we have websites, and we're just trying to get ot out there, not only to other OTs, but to parents, to caregivers. To people working with dementia, educators, everything. You know, we're all OTs, just in a different area, and so we can have a different influence. So, yeah, right.
Abby Parana
Super cool. And it's something that's like an extremely needed area in our profession. OT we're not great at advocating for our profession all the time, particularly online. It seems like nobody really understands occupational therapy. So I think the more voices in social media and that are doing podcasts or having platforms on Instagram or Facebook, I think the better, because if we advocate for our profession, then we legitimize our profession too. So it's kind of owning that what we do is pretty stinking awesome. I mean, for lack of a better way of putting it.
Jayson Davies
No, absolutely right. And you know what, we're definitely gonna have to have a podcast about advocacy, because especially at ot this year, the two key themes that I took away from ot were, one, building capacity within occupational therapists, and the other, which was huge, was becoming a go to OT and that's front line by Sabrina McCarley out here, and she wants, you know, us to stand up, not only in our own jobs, you know, advocating for case loads and workloads and all that good stuff, but also talking to legislators out there and letting them know what our concerns are and how we can better help our population. So, yeah, two big, big key terms this year were, were advocacy and building capacity. So, yeah, all right, well, I think that was a long enough introduction.
Abby Parana
to catch up on.
Jayson Davies
We did. We did. And you know what that's we did miss last week's podcast episode because of OT. Actually, we're just so busy with that, but we're happy to be back. And actually, we're going to share with you exactly what we were doing, what we were doing at ot last week. So sorry for the one week delay, but we're getting this out there to you now, and we're going to jump into our presentation on online media and how it can affect school based OTs, how it can affect students, and how we can have have an effect on social media and online media. So I guess we should jump into it then, yeah, let's get to it. All right. Well, before I forget, I do want to let you all know that since we have this PowerPoint, because we presented it at ot we're actually going to put this PowerPoint up again on the show notes at ot schoolhouse.com, forward slash episode 17. So you'll have access to these show notes or this PowerPoint. So if you want to take notes or that you're that type of person, go ahead. But if you're driving and you don't want to take notes, feel free to access the podcast over at or not the podcast, the show notes for the podcast at ot schoolhouse.com, forward slash episode 17. So, like I kind of mentioned earlier, this presentation was all about online media and how OTs can utilize online media. And I specifically say online media because it's not just social media. We also took into account, you know, the the ability to access Asia online, the ability to listen to podcasts, the ability to access blogs online, the ability to access any journal online. For that matter, you know, of course, you know, putting this presentation together, we did a little background, and we were really surprised to actually to find out that the terminology podcast, while the terminology of podcasts may be new, the idea of streaming audio, of course, has been a long or has been around for a long time. Of course, there's radios, but originally, podcasts kind of started back in 1985 before any social media, of course, and and, or any blogs came out. And then, you know, in 2003 we started to see LinkedIn and WordPress, and then podcast began to get a little bit bigger in 2004 Facebook came around in 2004 YouTube in 2005 and now, you know, we have Pinterest and Instagram in 2010 and there's so many more out there. But as you know, these are kind of like the big ones Twitter in 2006 and so it's really cool that we have access to all these but it's also a little bit scary, because our information is out there. And you know what? Maybe we'll still do our little exercise that we did for this presentation, and at the end, well, we'll ask you all to do something for us at the end of the end of the show. But yeah, we just kind of want to get out there. You know that people are using social media. People are using it, not only for for using their personal lives, but professional lives out there too. I'm sure you are so many of you follow us on the blog, or, you know, you follow our podcast, or you follow ot school house, the Facebook page. And you know, these are all areas where you're able to learn new stuff, just like we follow other blogs and stuff.
Abby Parana
So actually, yeah, social media has taken on kind of a life of its own. And the term occupation, as defined by the occupational therapy practice framework, refers to the daily life activities in which. People engage. And I think a lot of us engage repetitively, almost compulsively, in social media, in online media in general. And that comes a lot from just having it right in the palm of our hand. I think with the fact that we have our mobile devices are pretty much tiny computers that are handheld and allow us to access information and social media nearly regularly that it has become a daily occupation. That could be defined as a daily occupation, I think it's a little bit leisure. I think a lot of us use it also as part of our work occupations, even sometimes it's play, sometimes I'm looking at stupid videos of cats and dogs.
Jayson Davies
That's definitely leisure, right?
Abby Parana
And sometimes it's leisure just in that I'm connecting socially and making plans with friends. You know, I get invites to Facebook group activities, or somebody sets up a page like, Come paint with me. One of my friends does that where she hosts paint nights at her house, and so she'll set up a page for that. So that's kind of a leisure occupation. So if you think about clients that we have or students that we have that are in high school elementary school, they're accessing their Facebook, and a lot of them are using it to find these leisure activities or to like I said, Look at dumb videos or post dumb videos. And too, I think it's interesting to note an interesting statistic by the Pew Research Center, that 51% of Facebook users report accessing Facebook multiple times a day, just like what I was indicating. So I'm not sure how many times you access it. Jayson, but I'm on too many times. Like I've even put my settings on my phone in black and white, just so that I stopped looking at it as often.
Jayson Davies
Yeah, I turned off that. I turned off all my notifications so I don't get notified notifications from Facebook and emails and stuff like that, to try to help out. But even then, I'm not gonna lie, I still find myself, you know, just looking at my phone as I'm walking from one classroom to another. I know I shouldn't be but every now and then, you know, it's kind of that Facebook addiction thing that's out there right now. And you know, I'm kind of there. But.
Abby Parana
Even just etiquette in IEP meetings, like I noticed, a lot of people just have their phones right on the table, I make a conscious decision to either leave my phone in my office or tuck it into my bag and like the very bottom, so that I'm not tempted to pick it up, because I have found myself just compulsively picking it up in meetings, and that is not good etiquette.
Jayson Davies
No, no, definitely not. But, you know, it's, it's not good etiquette, but it's definitely less taboo than it used to be. Like, people understand, you know, no one's no one like, makes a big thing of it. When someone's phone rings in the middle of a meeting anymore, it's just like, oh, that person's phone ringing. Let's keep talking. We know that person's gonna put it on silent in half a second. And same thing, you know, parents and other people, you know they're busy, we understand that you can send a quick text message, then again, you shouldn't be on your phone the entire meeting or anything. But it's kind of like we understand as professionals that people are busy, that this isn't the only thing going on in the world. And you know, 99% of the time that people are using their phone now, is it is business, so, right? But yes, you need to be.
Abby Parana
Would you venture to say, though, however, that if that's the case, then you're not present for the concerns of the IEP meeting. Because I think for me, it's like a state of mind, like I want to be present to address what is happening in that room. You know, we all, we all have busy schedules, and we all have to be there during that time, including the parent. So I'm kind of, while I appreciate the understanding, I just know that, like staying present during those meetings mentally is important, although I'm not good at it all the time.
Jayson Davies
Yeah, I'm thinking of like the moments where, you know, a kid or a parent brings up a concern, and really quickly I can find an app that will help that kid like that's kind of the things that I'll often be looking up, whether I'm on my computer, my tablet or my phone. If I know the student has access to an iPad and they're bringing up a concern, I'm gonna real quick grab my phone, do a quick search for speech to text and see what apps are out there that this kid can use. I mean, that's how I found an app called speechify, where I can take a picture of any text, it'll and then it'll read that text to the kid. And I would never have found that. I mean, maybe I would have taken a note on that, gone back to my office the next day, looked it up. But so it's kind of a, you know, we're if you're using it for work, it's a little more appropriate. It obviously looks more appropriate if you're doing it on your computer rather than your smartphone. So, you know, try and if you're going to be on technology, definitely, I would suggest it being either a tablet or that you're taking notes on, or a computer you're taking notes on. But sometimes you do need to use the. Phone to kind of look up something, but.
Abby Parana
Oh yeah, absolutely, it's just a double edged sword.
Jayson Davies
Yeah, that was a huge tangent, but I'm glad we did that, because that is something that a school based therapists do kind of run into. You know, it's IEPs are three hours long sometimes, man, and it gets hard to stay focused for three hours. Our kids know that before we move on. I do want to mention that we're kind of going on this is that there's not a lot of stuff out there about social media and online media from our organizations, the World Federation of OT, W, F, OT, they actually do have a social media guideline document on their website. But a OT, a California OT, even MBs, MB C ot has very, very little, if any, information about how to use, how to use social media, or how we should not use social media, or that much. So it's just something to point out. Yeah, yeah, so we got to get it together. Yeah, right. Surprisingly, although there's not much on the website, the otpf does actually pretty extensively talk about the use of computers, not necessarily social media too much, but the use of computers, tablets and video game consoles and phones, because they understand that, you know what? That is an occupation. And I honestly, some people might have a big issue with me saying this, but I could easily go into high school today and justify making a a goal for a kid to access Facebook, because that is a meaningful occupation for all teenagers.
Abby Parana
Oh, absolutely. And so even more so like Snapchat and Instagram.
Jayson Davies
Well, yeah, right. And so, yeah, I could easily see a parent saying, hey, my kids not able to access leisure and play. They're not able to socialize. And, you know, I mean, how big is texting and being able to access all those social media sites? You know, I'm not going to go in and, like, completely just offer this to every kid on an IEP No, but.
Abby Parana
Calm down everyone.
Jayson Davies
But I could see someone saying they can't access their education because they can't access social media and have those interactions, those typical interactions, with their peers. So all right, there's one more quote that I wanted to or at least a resource. This is actually from the Journal of further and higher education, and it states that Twitter has the potential to become a credible platform for continuing professional development or CPD, not only for clinicians professional development, but also for the advancement of profession itself. And well, I know Abby is huge on advancement of profession. So how do you use How do you use social media, online media, to advance our profession of OT?
Abby Parana
Well, I mean, I think you and I can both definitely vouch for this just I think sharing treatment ideas, you're sharing articles that you're finding, you're sharing your own. I mean, I guess that's really broad way of putting it, but I would say the other way is when you're looking at professional development, I mean, look at the Facebook groups we're both involved in. You get on there and everybody's sharing ideas, and a lot of times you'll get back up from research articles in those groups, like somebody will say, Oh, I do this, this and this, and here's a study. And so those things are pretty cool in that respect, Twitter, I didn't realize I even had a Twitter account still, until I, you know, like we were talking about, we're gonna do an experiment later. So we'll go into that everybody. But I think one of the things I, you know, I could see it being a good continuing professional development. I mean, look at the podcast. I mean, this is a prime example where we're taking in audio platform and giving education. And there's no real reason why this isn't continuing education. We're using research, we're discussing research, and we're promoting educational values of our profession.
Jayson Davies
Exactly, yeah. No doubt about that, I would say that's accurate. Yeah. And so what really led to us completing this, this presentation that we did for ot was actually that we were almost doing research for the OT school house. We wanted to know what people were looking at, specifically, what school based OTs were really looking at when it comes to online media, social media. Were they using social media to access professional development? Were they looking up research articles through Facebook groups, Facebook pages? Podcast, Instagram, Pinterest, and so we actually did a little survey to find out, and I'm sure some of you listening now actually participated in this survey. And thank you so much if that was you, and even if it wasn't you, we thank you for listening right now, because this shows that you're actually interested in knowing the results of that survey. And so appreciate you having to listen.
Abby Parana
Oh, for sure, which also brings up another point, because you just shared another research survey on Facebook from not by us, but somebody else. But that's another way people are utilizing social media for the profession. Is not just to advocate ideas, but to actually do studies of what we're all doing, and it is such a quick, easy with things like Survey Monkey and like all these different things, it's really easy to get a quick participant, yeah, participants in like, a larger sample and a wider ranging sample. So, I mean, this is a great opportunity for OT.
Jayson Davies
Yeah. And what she's Yeah, the the link that you're talking about is actually a, I believe, at stanbridge. It's a, it's one of my fellow thesis advisors from stanbridge University down here in Southern California. And she's actually looking at some of the difficulties that new pediatric therapists have. You know, I don't want to lead people into responses, but if you do visit, if you do visit our Facebook page, the link is there as well as the notes. It'll only be up until the early part of November, 2008 18. But yeah, it is about pediatric therapists that are within the first three years of their practice. And so if you're interested, we definitely invite you to have a look at at that so But getting back to our actual little survey that we did, again, this wasn't an IRB approved survey or anything. This is just a a survey that we did, and it started out as kind of like a market research for the OT school house, but we got back information that we thought other OTs might want to know about, and it kind of helped us out, and we think it might be able to help you out. So through this survey, you know, we reached out to OTs in all different realms of social media or online media. We sent it out to our email list, we sent it out on Facebook, we sent it out on Reddit, a few other places, and we had of the 241 respondents, we had 77% occupational therapists feel it out, fill it out. Almost 14% occupational therapy assistants filled this out, and 8.8% of the participants that filled this out were students. There's a small handful of other professionals that also did. But of those people that did fill it out, 42% of them were school based therapists. 10% worked in other pediatric setting, and another 10% about worked in the acute rehab. So it was really cool, the the diverse population that we had, as well, as you know, we had a pretty good spread of not just OTs, but also occupational therapy assistants and students, which is, which was super cool. And so the first question we asked, I'm gonna let Abby tell you a little bit about this. But the first question was, it to those participants, was, which of the following do you regular, regularly read or visit as part of your quest to better yourself as an OT or an OT aide. And so I'm gonna let Abby talk about what the results to that specific question were.
Abby Parana
Right? So the results to that were that the majority of people that responded to this survey, a lot about 48.8% said a jot. Yay. Aja and
Jayson Davies
Ajia, it's actually going all online. It's going paperless, I believe, next year, and so you're gonna have to access it online. You're not gonna get those quarterly journals in your mail.
Abby Parana
Oh, and it should be noted that they didn't have they could pick more than one response, right? So that wasn't actually the highest response level, but also the most another interesting thing were Facebook groups. So they regularly visit Facebook groups. 66.3% of respondents said that they regularly also visited Facebook groups. So those could be two, you know, one person could be going to both of those, right Jayson?
Jayson Davies
Of course, and I'm just double checking that many, many do, yeah?
Abby Parana
Other things that folks are looking at often were professional development websites.
Jayson Davies
And that's like, yeah, sorry. That's like, med bridge and occupational therapy. Throw this out there. Since we did just a med bridge that you can get a discount at Med bridge education the website if you use promo code ot school house. But yeah, that was another big one. Was med bridge and and occupational therapy and those were both actually thrown out during our live presentation that we did at OT. Tech, several people said, Yeah, I have a handful of people at least said, Yeah, I use those for continuing education, right?
Abby Parana
And then just using a ota.org you know? I know I look up things on there. Often I like, kind of their quick back lists for different areas, other journals. So people are still looking at professional journals and then just other websites. Half of everybody responded, you know, 122 people said they're just looking at other websites to better themselves. So maybe that could be blogs potentially, or different things of that nature. Pinterest was another big one, with 87 respondents saying that they use that to better themselves. I'm thinking I use that often for treatment ideas. So if I'm looking for something to do with a kid, I might look on there. So it was a pretty interesting survey in that respect. What I mean, are there anything?
Jayson Davies
You mentioned the the top two, the OT, a slash a, OT, and then Facebook groups and pages. The actual third top one, I guess, was actually Google and Google Scholar and so you can imagine, you know, people, that's where everyone starts nowadays. Just Google type in occupational therapy interventions for kids or pediatric OT or school based ot intervention. Of course, Google is popular, but also, surprisingly, Google Google Scholar was very popular, and of course, that is like Google's version of a search engine for research. And so that was cool to see that people are actually using Google Scholar to find research. And some people, again, just a few, a handful, threw us for a loop and added in their own comment and said, It depends on what I'm looking for. And that kind of is exactly what I was happy to hear. That you know that means not everyone's going to our even our website to find research articles. They're going to where they should be, like as OT, or the Open Journal of OT, or to some other journal to look for that research, you know. So that's good to hear. You know, people aren't going to one place because no website, no website, is like a fit all for everything. So.
Abby Parana
Right? Like you might want to Google the search term, then you might want to check for an article in a dot, and then you might want to go to Pinterest to find the activity that is going to flow with all of those things.
Jayson Davies
Absolutely. So the next question that we asked was, how frequently do you consume any of the above content as it relates to improving yourself as an OT or occupational therapy assistant? And do you look for treatment ideas? And so 42% of people that filled out this survey said that they search some sort of the one of those websites that we just mentioned before, five times, or at least up to five times a week. 42% of OTs are searching up to five times a week for ot related content. So that's like every weekday, you know, every day of the week, except for weekends, they are looking for ot content online. And then another 18% said they're going further beyond that. They're saying at least once a day, up to 10 times per week, they're going online. So that's pretty you know, over half of us are basically looking at our computer or at our phone on a daily basis for stuff related to work. Like, I don't know that. It seems like a lot to me. Like, honestly, I don't think everyone does that, but it's cool to know that US OTs are using social media and online media to to find to better ourselves and to better the treatments that we can provide for our kids?
Abby Parana
Oh, yeah, definitely. And then the last question was, How frequently do you seek out research articles to read in order to improve yourself as an OT or an OT A and we had the responses were once a year, up to five times a year, five to 10 times a year, monthly, a few times a month, or several times a month. And it seems that people, I mean, I mean, the responses were pretty Spread out, spread out, but pretty even in a lot of ways, apart from the once a year, it's nice to see that people are looking up things more than once a year, right? One was only 9.2% of responses said once a year they seek out research articles.
Jayson Davies
So yeah, you know about 50% of the participants are looking at journals at least monthly. So again, yeah, that's cool to see that in our profession, people are looking up journals specifically just about monthly or more. And so online is not just for articles or blogs that are opinionated. You know, people are going online to look up the research, and as a science and art based profession, that's important, because we need to make sure that we are keeping our. Up to date on the latest research and using evidence based, you know, interventions. So that's that was a very I really liked the well roundedness that we received on that question. Yeah. Job OTs, yeah. Look up your research Exactly. So to sum all this up, you know, at least that little survey that we did, a OTA is still definitely the go to the go to resource, whether it be the Asia OT or the vast majority of information that a OTA really does have, it is the place where people are most going to. 35% of the respondents are looking specifically for research articles at least a few times a month. And that is fantastic. And a OTA really is that go to place. Of course, there's also ProQuest, if you're an NPC ot member, then you do have access to ProQuest, where you can look up even more articles related to occupational therapists. Facebook pages, and especially groups, those are also extremely popular, and we're seeing that. I mean, there's several groups, so many groups out there specifically related to school based OTs, that have 1000s and 1000s of members of people asking questions. And if you're not part of that group, actually, in our slide show, we have a list of a few groups that we would definitely recommend, so be sure to download that we might get to mentioning those at the very, very end. But the school based ot Facebook group, you got to be a part of that if you're a school based OT.
Abby Parana
Oh, Definitely. There's some good discussions going on. That's a good question.
Jayson Davies
Yeah, for sure, yeah. And then the last thing you know to really sum up is that 75% of all of all the OTs, OTs out there are looking up content online every single day as it relates to OT to better themselves. And that is just fantastic, because we need more OTs out there that are willing to, you know, run into a problem. You know, you're in an IEP, you run into a problem. You don't know how to solve something, and instead of, you know, delaying it, you just get online. You go, you go to Asia, you go do a Facebook group, and you ask questions, and you learn more about what you can do to better help that kid.
Abby Parana
Yeah, and OTs are really friendly online. We're all ready to jump in and provide strategies and help each other out. So if you're afraid to ask a question to a Facebook group, don't be because you'll get 10 to 20 willing participants to give you answers and two, don't be afraid to chime in with your opinion on those groups as well. I've learned a lot just from giving my opinion and then, you know, having a discussion back and forth with other OTs about what they're doing. Mm, hmm,
Jayson Davies
absolutely. Yeah, it's cool. It's also really cool because you get to see responses from OTs from all over the country, if not all over the world. Yeah, and so, and people have debates on there, you know, yes, they're nice about it, but people do have debates, you know, about some topics that aren't as well researched as others, and people are kind of willing to say, you know, what I get, what you're saying, but that may not actually be really research based, and maybe you want to look into it a little bit more. And so I like to see those types of interactions going on on the different pages. It's really cool. Yeah, me too. So we've already mentioned a few of these different types of medias that we talked about. I just want to go over this quick list. You know, these are all the different areas where OTs are utilizing, the different resources OTs are utilizing to learn more information. And that is, of course, a OT, a nb, C OT and Pro Quest, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn, blogs, podcasts like this one, yay. YouTube, that's another one that's up and coming. People are even going, there's even an OT section on Reddit. I mean, you can find people talking on Reddit professional development websites. We talked about med bridge and occupational therapy com. But there's also smaller blogs that provide provide professional development, kind of like we do through the podcast. There's even some apps. There's one called ot at home for iPhones, and it's a college that put together, they actually put together treatment activities. It's like a little Pinterest board, yeah. And then, of course, there is Pinterest. Naturally. Pinterest is everyone loves Pinterest. You can't be, you can't be an OT and not like Pinterest. Doesn't matter what field you work in.
Abby Parana
That's true. So what are school based ot practitioners, looking for online like we've already kind of touched on research intervention, ideas, assistance with writing IEP goals. We are all I see that on Facebook groups constantly, right? Writing those IEP goals, also looking for professional development. You know, those online? Online occupational therapy.com, med bridge are examples of that, but there's also smaller ones for professional development, looking up things for evaluation and other practitioners, as well as documentation and billing. There's a lot of things with that going on right now, across states, across districts, everybody seems to be doing some of these things differently in school based OTs. So I think Online provides a good connection between all of us in the profession, across state lines, but also across district lines, because so much of what we do is different, district to district and state to state, which is, I mean, interesting in itself, considering, you know, just that alone is an interesting topic. We might have to, ah, that could be our next survey,
Jayson Davies
definitely. So when we look at research again, Asia ProQuest, the Open Journal, ot journal for educational research online, which is kind of cool, because it's not an OT journal, but they talk about all educational research. And so you can get a little bit of OT, but you also get a lot of that education side, you know, the side that we may not get through schooling, but the teachers may get a little bit of that. So you get a little you get to dive into the educational realm for a little bit. And then, of course, there's blogs and podcasts that have their citations in there. You know, like, we're going to have all of our citations that we looked at in the show notes, as well as in our slideshow, and you'll be able to look at the evidence that we used. And then you can even look at the citation from those articles. And you can dive even deeper into research. And so if you're interested in learning a little bit more about research, I would definitely recommend that you check out. If you haven't already, Episode 11 of our of our podcast with Dr Amy Sadek, we did a whole episode on how to be an evidence based ot in public schools. And so definitely check that out. That is a good one, yeah. And so the next area is actually going to be intervention ideas, you know? And yeah, we already mentioned Pinterest several times for intervention ideas. But of course, Instagram another huge one, because you can search hashtags. And so one of the more popular hashtags that you can search to find ideas is actually hashtag therapy ideas, right?
Abby Parana
And I think too, you know when we're talking about interventions where, you know, Pinterest and Instagram are great for just the ideas for the activities we're going to do. But I do love the discussion again with Facebook groups on how to, how we're going to implement those activities. So it's kind of like the frequency, the duration, the the you know, how often? What are we more than just the doing, but what? What's the progression of those treatments? And sometimes those discussions are happening more on Facebook?
Jayson Davies
Yeah, that's the thing about Facebook. You can get a little deeper into stuff, you can actually have a real conversation. You know, Instagram isn't really a conversation driven. It's obviously picture driven. And same thing with with Pinterest, you're not really replying to the people that that posted an activity on on a Pinterest board. You know, you're really just kind of, you're it's click bait, in a way. You know, you click on it, you get the information you want, and then you're on to the next one. Whereas Facebook is definitely more interactive, you have conversations with people.
Abby Parana
And on another note, you know, a OTA also had an article about how, what is a good like, essentially, frequency and duration for pediatric therapies. So it was kind of an interesting like, how what is an effective way of delivering services, was that the OT practice that just came out, ot practice, yep, I think it was an OT practice. I think it
Jayson Davies
was, yeah, the main it's on my, yeah, it's on my to read list,
Abby Parana
it's on my to read list, and I read it, oh, yeah, yeah. That's really pretty interesting. I cannot remember everything that was in it offhand right now. I wish I would have written it down, but things like that, it's kind of nice, because you can, if you can tie it all back together, it's kind of cool. Yeah, all right, that's what it was on, dosage,
Jayson Davies
dosage, yeah. And I was it about school based, or was it about more clinic. I
Abby Parana
think it was more clinic based. But again, I think dosage and school based is an area we could all work on as well.
Jayson Davies
Yeah, another topic for another day, right? Oh, so many topics. All right, all right. So then we get into IEP goals. And like Abby said, you know, Facebook is a great place for IEP goals, but so are blogs. There are different bloggers out there, per se, that have actually created IEP gold banks, and you can find some out there. I can't think of any off the top of my head, but it does exist. There have been some therapists that put together free gold banks. And OTs, you're more than welcome to find them and, you know, edit them to your liking and make it work. So definitely, and I guess I should mention, you know, we also do have a podcast about smart eagles. And real quick, I am going to say that is actually episode number three, way back. Episode number three. Oh my gosh. It seems so long ago now. I know
Abby Parana
Back when we were just babies.
Jayson Davies
Baby OT podcast, but yeah, so ot schoolhouse.com, forward slash episode three, and that is the link to find out about our we did an entire podcast about smart eagles. And you know your your goals need to be specific, measurable, articulate, relevant, and was the last 1t for time, time based and educational.
Abby Parana
Right? And also, a is attainable, attainable. Sorry, not articulate. But, I mean, you can be articulate. You care to be both.
Jayson Davies
Yes, all right. And then, of course, there are professional development courses out there that that do focus on naive goals. So, all right, I'm going to kind of group these last three together. It's good idea professional development. Yeah, we've talked a lot about professional development already. We have evaluations. And networking, sorry, networking, yeah, and we'll do the last one all myself, because that's a whole nother beast. But professional development, evaluations and networking, just about all the social medias that are very interactive, I would say, you know, blogs are good for getting really deep, such as, like, you know, learning a little bit about evaluations. We did a podcast on evaluations, Episode Six. I believe it was. But when it comes to networking, Instagram, LinkedIn, you know, people, especially OTs, we like to be around OTs. I'm sorry, but, oh, it's so true. We love to talk OT. I don't, I don't know why.
Abby Parana
Special kind of weirdo, I think, no, and I mean that in like, the best way.
Jayson Davies
Geek out.
Abby Parana
Yeah, we're just nerdy about it, which is fantastic. It makes me really happy to be an OT weirdo.
Jayson Davies
I mean, you can say that, no, it's, I mean, come on. Like it. It takes a special group of two people to put a podcast together all about school based. OT, that's true. We're pretty weird over here. Abby, Abby, you and I. Man, all right, we enjoyed it. We hope you guys out there. Yeah, we know. We know there's other people out there that enjoy it like we do. Otherwise, you guys wouldn't be listening to this podcast.
Abby Parana
We wouldn't be making any more of them. Don't make them just be for an audience of two Exactly.
Jayson Davies
So yeah, just about anywhere you can really go for those three things. However, the last one that we really wanted to touch on was documentation and billing. And these are, in my opinion, touchy areas. Yes, there are conversations occurring about documentation and billing, on Facebook, a little bit on Reddit. We haven't mentioned this one a OTs community. OT. It used to be called ot connections, I think, and now it's community OT. There's a little bit going on there, especially in the private practice realm, because, you know, the DSM has changed. All the Medi Cal billing has changed, or Medicare billing has changed. The codes are changing in the last few years. But when it comes to school based, you really need to be looking to a OTs guidelines as well as your state guidelines. And a OTA does have guidelines for early intervention and school based therapists. And then, I mean, we live in California, and California has a good set of guidelines for OT and PT in California public schools and but most states actually have some sort of guidelines for OTs, and usually it's paired with PTS as well. You can find we have a, actually a resource on our website at ot schoolhouse.com I believe it's forward slash guidelines. And you can click on your state, and you'll be able to see the guidelines for your state if they have them. So that's a good resource in order to find out your guidelines. So go check that out. Yes, yeah, and it's free. It's it's really easy to use. It is, is there for you?
Abby Parana
So the next topic I guess we want to cover about being online and using online media is being self aware of online media and what you're doing online, because what goes online stays online. Absolutely, I found this out when I searched my name in Google. We did a little experiment when we were coming up with this part.
Jayson Davies
Yeah, indeed. And. You know what I think if you're if you haven't done it recently, and I do mean recently, like in the last six months or so, yeah, hit pause right now and just Google your name, maybe add the letters ot after it, so you don't get another person with the same name as you. But just see what comes up. Or maybe put the city you live in or something along with your name. Or Google our names if you're afraid of what you're going to find out about your name, Google. Abby piranha, Jayson Davies,
Abby Parana
you'll see I have incredible fashion sense, incredible clearly in my alpaca fur hat that apparently there's a photo of me wearing and I had forgotten about it. Also, I have a Twitter account that I forgot, but there's no Yeah, well, and it led me to dive even further into like my old Facebook pictures from college, and I realized I have some cleaning up to do in that department as well. So I think if you just know that if you posted it and it was your freshman year of college, it's still up somewhere, somewhere, yes, aware, yeah, of what you're posting.
Jayson Davies
The other things that we also want you to be aware of is how social media has affected people, not maybe not you, but it has affected people, and some ways that, that I've, I've heard people express it, you know, is that they they have FOMO because or fear of missing out FOMO, FOMO. And that's because, you know what, maybe they see, and this goes along with, you know, feelings of inadequacy. Maybe they see Abby's post of her doing this awesome activity with her kids where she cut out these haunted houses and drew pictures. You know, that was a recent thing that she put up on Instagram. It was awesome. But, I mean, can you imagine if you saw that and you just, like, felt so, so defeated, you're like, Man, I wish I could do that. That's just too much. I don't have the right groups to do that with whatever. So it can kind of lead to a little bit of in a feeling of inadequacy, not the actual inadequacy itself, but just a feeling. And, you know, that can lead to to other things, you know, anxiety and depression, potentially. And so be aware that, you know people, when they're posting stuff online is typically like the best of the best thing that they've ever done. Like, you know, not everyone is creating the best thing ever every day, and people aren't traveling all the time. I mean, they post a picture of Hawaii, doesn't mean they're in Hawaii 24/7 it's just that one really good photo that they took there.
Abby Parana
Right? Except for the time I lived there.
Jayson Davies
Don't remind us.
Abby Parana
Just kidding, the word gig a lot of the time too. Yeah, yeah, I would agree.
Jayson Davies
And on the opposite end of that, it can also give people superficial confidence. You know, the people that are posting, you know, they like to post their activities every day, and it makes them feel good because they're getting some likes. I mean, I feel good when I get likes. When all you out there, you know, like our Instagram post or our Facebook post, yeah, it feels good. But I also realize, you know, just because I've I've got a few likes doesn't mean that that's the best thing ever. You know, I can go out there and I can do better, I can do more research, and I can continue to get better. And, you know, my, my ability to become a better OT is never completed, right? And, yeah, you know, the last thing that we put on self awareness is that, you know this, this being online and social media, it's a whole new occupation. And if you don't want to call it an occupation, I'm I'm sorry, but I disagree with that it is an occupation. Not only is it a daily occupation, it's like an hourly occupation for most people, 18 to 35 and so this is definitely something that us OTs can and should address and also maintain self awareness of, Oh,
Abby Parana
definitely, definitely. And that goes into being mindful. You know, not everything that's online is valuable, and not everything belongs online. I mean, we already talked about things that don't belong online. I have quite a few examples of that. But also I think that when you're looking at things online, you need to use a critical eye. You need to use your clinical reasoning skills, and you need to recognize, you know, that not everything online is valuable, and you have to vet what you're seeing. Again, goes to Jayson point about, you know, not everybody's on vacation, 24/7 and that whole fear of missing out, but also just that, you know, there's a lot of information that's sold as information that's critical, but it's actually a marketing tactic. You know, I've seen things like, you know, an article written by an OT to promote a certain sensory item, but that item. May not be completely well researched, and while the article is written by an occupational therapist, you may want to actually go do your own a ot search, or your own ProQuest search before you turn around and buy it for one of your students. And you know, I think too, that goes into us as OTs. We need to be responsible and know that we're a research and evidence based profession. And so if we are putting articles out there, information out there, we need to do the research to back up what we're saying and take responsibility, you know, to make sure that our profession stays credited. Yeah,
Jayson Davies
credible, credible. Credible.
Abby Parana
Credited, credible. I was looking for the word credible.
Jayson Davies
Sometimes we're not too articulate here at the OT school house, but we try our best. And, yeah, hey, we put ourselves out there for all Yeah. One thing that stood out about being mindful that I actually looked this up on the W, F, ot principles for guideline or social media guidelines. And the number one guideline that they had was, you know, recognize that the personal and professional roles cannot always be separated, and this is so true for for social media. I mean, I'm gonna use myself as an example. I kind of have, like, three different roles. I mean, I'm a school based OT. I am a husband to my wife, obviously, and have my friends and my family. And then I am also this figure, this quote, unquote, public figure, if you want to call it that, between this podcast and the blog, and they all kind of merge together. And I love that they merged together. But at the same time, you have to be careful. I mean, you can't, you can't let something that you do in your personal life ruin those other aspects. And in OT anywhere in the medical field and the educational field, that's huge. I mean, those background searches, man, like you're not gonna get a job without your employer googling you. I don't think these days, you know, and so you gotta.
Abby Parana
And to that point too, I have a friend like, I had some friend requests from parents who were also teachers in the district as well that I interacted with. So it was kind of like, ooh, parents of the student and a teacher that worked in the district. And also, you know, a friend of mine on social media, you have to be very conscious that you can't separate, I mean, and you and I really can't separate the professional from the personal, because our faces are a part of the podcast. They're a part of OT school house, and there's a level of trust that's built with that when you are willing to put your face to your you know your brand or your background or your profession, but with that goes a certain level of vulnerability and responsibility to make sure you're kind of putting your best face forward on social media as often as you can. And so I have my privacy settings set to where I can vet things before they get posted.
Jayson Davies
That is very smart. And I would everybody that, yeah. And so, you know, you know, to close this out real quick, to close out what we're talking about, you know, you got to keep in mind, you know, what is on your social media page, whether it's words, pictures, video or even audio. What are you putting as your likes and your dislikes on on your Facebook page? You know, is it? Is it stuff that maybe you liked back in high school, but it's now something that could be demeaning to someone you know you're back in your quote, unquote stupid days and or your whatever days back and then, and you know it needs to be updated. Is your social media profile accessible? And that's what Abby was just talking about. You know, are you closing down your your profile to no one can find you, or are you using it as a tool to help you grow professionally and keeping it open, and depending on what you're doing, whether it's open or closed, you know, are you posting appropriately? And like Abby was saying, you know, what comes up when you Google, when you google your name, that's a huge thing, and you know, you can't control that completely, but there are things that you can take down if you find them. And the other thing that you can do is also dictate what comes up by creating your own professional website, or your own personal website, buying Jayson davies.com or Abby piranha.com and it doesn't cost a whole lot to have a professor like a personal website like that, and then you can kind of dictate what is found when you're when you're a future employer. Google's your name, and you can have on there basically, like a resume, plus a little bit more, you know, maybe a little bit about your family, as well as your resume, or something like that. Whatever you want on there you can have on there so.
Abby Parana
Too, I think there's what was it? Seth Godin talks a lot about your that's one of the best parts of. Out online right now is that people can individualize themselves and put their own personal website out there as their own personal brand, like something like that.
Jayson Davies
Yeah, you have to be. I mean, everyone kind of has to have take control of their online presence.
Abby Parana
Definitely, definitely, and that's something we can help our clients do as well, and it's important to keep that in mind, because we do work with vulnerable populations. If you think about it, you know, working in schools, we are inherently working with children who have disabilities, and we are inherently working with them and their families. So we're privy to information, and we know things about them that other people do not. And so when we are, you know, online or we're using pictures of treatment ideas to help promote not just our profession, but also communicate with other OTs, and we're saying, Oh, this worked really well. We need to be very aware that we're not using those vulnerable populations in a way that's not going to serve them. So I would say, you know, don't post pictures of your kids online with that you're working with. I mean, that's my personal opinion about it, but also noticing too, like if you're using a child that is vulnerable to your advantage in your own personal social media, that's also something that you have to ethically kind of question yourself on. You know, it's okay to think of the activity or say like, oh, this worked really well for a student who had X, Y or Z, but if you are specifically utilizing pictures of a specific student to kind of promote your brand or something like that. I wouldn't recommend doing that.
Jayson Davies
We have a list here on the slide show that kind of just points to some of the websites, the Facebook groups, the podcasts and the different Instagram hashtags that you can use. We mentioned several of them, like the OT for life podcast, we haven't mentioned the milestones podcast, the sensory project show, pocket ot.com the anonymous ot.com as well as our blog and then several Facebook groups. I'm not I guess I might as well. This is a podcast. Why not? School Based occupational and physical therapist Facebook group. So if you want to find that, just click on the Search port the search bar within the Facebook app or page and just type that in there, as well as the California or even USA school based occupational therapist looking for change. That's a group of OTs that's kind of growing so, yeah, definitely keep these all in mind. I mean, yeah, this is the internet. Is here to stay, obviously, social media. I mean, I don't know if it's always going to be the way that it is right now, but I don't see it going anywhere. It might adapt. It might get better, but it's definitely still going to be around. And, yeah, OTs, I mean, we need to figure out how to use online and social media to our benefit, not only for us, but also for the populations that we work with, because, like we said way at the beginning of this, of this podcast, you know, everyone's using the internet, and it absolutely is an occupation, whether it's leisure, whether it's play, whether it's social interaction, it is definitely a meaningful activity.
Abby Parana
Oh, definitely, for sure.
Jayson Davies
All right, well, you have anything left? Abby, I think that about wraps it up for today.
Abby Parana
No, I mean, I think we've covered everything that you and I know about.
Jayson Davies
If not, we'll have a part two, if not
Abby Parana
of a part two, and I'm sure in like a year, there'll be 30 more things to discuss as far as this topic goes, because it's such a new area, it's just going to be constantly evolving and changing. And as ot we got to keep our finger on the pulse of that, yes, definitely.
Jayson Davies
So thank you everyone for listening this I know wasn't the most like ot podcast, like it's not something all about treatments, and it's not all about the fun stuff, but it absolutely is, in our opinion, a necessary piece of information that OTs should be aware about. And so that's why we wanted to bring it here for you all. And so we hope you enjoyed it. We hope you learned a little bit, and you can actually earn some professional development for this podcast that we did. And you will be able to find that at ot schoolhouse.com forward slash, PD, as in professional development, or on the show notes at ot schoolhouse.com forward slash episode 17, so we hope to see you over there and a otherwise we will see you on the next podcast.
Abby Parana
Thanks for stopping by.
Jayson Davies
Take care everyone. Bye, bye.
Amazing Narrator
Thank you for listening to the OT school house podcast for more ways to help you and your students succeed right now, head on over to OTschoolhouse.com Until next time class is dismissed.
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