Transparency and technology appropriation: social impacts of a video blogging system in dental hygiene clinical instruction

Abstract

This work describes a multi-year ethnography-for-design study in a dental hygiene training program in San Diego, USA. We performed an ethnographic analysis of instructional practices used in clinical instruction, and helped design a new training laboratory, equipped with digital media technology, through which students and instructors could access a video blogging ('vlogging') system. We present an analysis of how the vlogging system transformed social and instructional interactions in clinical training. Additionally, we describe how the faculty's appropriation of vlog technology was initially challenged by the presentation of divergent methodology in vlog records, and increased transparency of teaching practices in video records.