OT and Online Professional & Social Networking

There has been an ever-growing presence for occupational therapy on the Internet.  Social and professional networking amongst occupational therapy practitioners has been the subject of presentations at conferences, blog posts, articles, and more.  Several months ago, OT Practice had a CEU article on social networking.

In the most recent issue of OT Practice, Karen Dobyns, a student occupational therapist finishing up her fieldwork rotations, wrote an excellent article titled ‘Enhancing Practice through Online Social Networking.’  She writes about how posting stories, questions, or insights about occupational therapy creates a permenant record that can then be seen by others.  Therefore, if someone else has a question that you might have asked, it can be easily found with a search on the Internet.  Collaborating and sharing online also helps one grow professionally and clinically.  I’d like to say thank you to Karen for including my blog in your list of blogs that you shared in OT Practice.

The AOTA has made a strong push into the online world by actively engaging others in most of the social networking medias, such as YouTube, Facebook, MySpace, Twitter, Flickr, and Plurk.  Today, the AOTA has launced their own social networking media, called OT Connections.  Similar in layout to MySpace and Facebook, it allows occupational therapists to add friends, post blogs and pictures, and truly collaborate with fellow therapists. It also allows you to have access to the listservs.  What makes it truly great is that you do not have to be an AOTA member to sign up and benefit from the website.  They have made it open to any occupational therapist (or other professional) that would like to join.  I strongly encourage you to join.  On the first day alone, they already have more than 80 members!  Once again, here is the website.

Day 5: Comment on a Blog Post You Don’t Agree With

This one was pretty easy.  See here for my disagreement.

Day 4: Ask a Question in a Blog Comment

Here it is on May 18th, and I’m only up to Day 4.  Unfortunately, I have bouts of time where I get busy with real life and don’t have time to blog. I have some catching up to do!

For the Day 4 challenge, I’ll actually refer back to a question I asked in a speech therapy blog, linked here (scroll way down).

Day 3: Sign up for a Comment Tracking Service

This task was relatively simple.  I signed up for CoComment, a service that allows you to track the comments you’ve made on other blogs, as well as the replies to your comments on those other blogs.  I’m sure this will come in handy for future challenges

Day 2: Comment on a Blog You’ve Never Commented on Before

Many of us can get into the habit of commenting at the same blogs. But part of extending the conversation is bringing new people into it. Today’s task is simple. Leave a comment on a blog where you’ve never commented before. If you’re feeling particularly ambitious, do this at a few blogs. You may want to blog about the experience on your own blog. If you do, be sure to tag it with “comment08″

Looking at my site stats, I found a blog linking to my own that I had never seen.  It was cleverly named, “Oh Tea” and is a brand new blog written by an occupational therapy (OT) student.  She had found my blog and was kind enough to link to me. I’ll post over there to welcome her to the blogging world

31 Day Challenge

In an effort to increase my blogging skills and learn more about enhancing my blog and networking with other blogs, I have decided to join the 31 Day Comment Challenge.  Since I’m starting this on May 5th, I’m obviously five days late, so I have some catching up to do.

Day 1 Challenge:

Answer the following questions:

• How often do you comment on other blogs during a typical week?
  • Unfortunately, I don’t comment on other blogs very often.  If I had to give it a number, I’d say I make less than one comment a week on other blogs.
• Do you track your blog comments? How? What do you do with your tracking?
  • WordPress does let me track my comments, but if I have multiple comments, it can difficult.  If there is a comment that needs attending to, I’ll save the email that notified me of the comment in my inbox, and I won’t delete it until I’ve addressed the comment.  Currently, I have about 7 comments that need to be addressed.
• Do you tend to comment at the same blogs or do you try to comment on at least one new blog per week?
  • I do tend to comment on the same blogs.  Occasionally, when I find a new blog that looks interesting, I’ll comment on a new blog.
• Now review Gina Trapani’s Guide to Blog Comments and ask yourself how well you’re doing in each of the different areas. Are there any specific areas where you think you need to do some work? What do you want to do to address these issues?
  • I’ve been on the Internet long enough to have witnessed every single behavior listed on that website, and I’ve been annoyed by it enough to know proper netiquette.

OT Links

I’d like to update the blogroll that appears on the right side of the blog page. So here’s your chance to plug your website or blog, and if it is OT related, I’ll add it in!

Blog neglect

I know, shame on me.  I have neglected this blog for more than two months.  I have a few ideas that I’ve been meaning to write about, so I hope to put them on the blog soon.  If I have any readers left, sorry for neglecting the blog!

Great discussion

Sorry about not updating the site, things have been really busy.  I did want to point out that there is a great discussion going on in my post, Traditional OT, and that you should definitely check it out if you haven’t already.

Getting a Job and New Links Added

I know it has been a while since my last post, but things have been a little busy with school, getting ready for graduation, and getting a job. Yep, I said getting a job. Because as of early last month, I am officially employed! I will be working in an acute care setting at an area hospital. I’m very excited about this position, and can’t wait to start!

It seems like a year ago, there was no such thing as an OT blog. But with blogs becoming more popular with just about everyone, several OT blogs have recently popped up. So make sure to check out several of the new links I posted on the right side of this screen.