Review of Teaching & Learning in Social Work Blog Posts for 2016

Posted By Laurel Hitchcock on Dec 28, 2016 | 0 comments

The end of a year is a natural time for reflection, and this year I offer a review of all the posts that appeared on Teaching & Learning in Social Work Education during 2016. My goal for this blog is to write or publish at least two posts a month, which happened more months than not. I also recruited other social work educators to write about their own experiences in the classroom or with scholarship, and also write about about all of my presentations, either at conferences or as a part of a workshop. This year, I published a total of 25 blog posts, representing work with numerous collaborators and good colleagues. Below is a list of this year’s post grouped around the topics of assignments, projects, guest educator posts, and conference presentations.

Assignments: These blog posts provide information, how-to tips, and ideas about different types of technology-based assignments for the social work classroom:
– Job Shadowing on Twitter with Joy Jones on 1/8/16
– Tweet, Tweet!: Using Live Twitter Chats in Social Work on Education with Dr. Jimmy Young on 1/29/16
– Using #MacroSW in the Classroom with the @OfficialMacroSW Partners on 3/14/16
– Using Pinterest in Undergraduate Social Work Education – #BPDTX16 with Dr. Lisa Baker on 3/31/16
– Revised Technology-Based Learning Task List for Social Work Education with Drs. Melanie Sage and Nancy J. Smyth on 6/13/16

Projects: These posts describe new projects that I started or worked on during 2016.

Social Media Toolkit for Social Work Field Educators with Allison Curington – The ultimate goal of this toolkit will be to provide social work field educators with the tools and resources to help students assess, develop, and maintain an online identity for professional purposes. It is a work in progress and these two posts describe our initial efforts:

– My Guidelines for using Digital & Social Tech in the Classroom and Beyond on 2/12/16
– #APM16 Day 4 – A Toolkit for Social and Digital Media Policies in Field Education on 11/16/16

#SWVirtualpal with Amanda Taylor – The purpose of the #SWVirtualpal hashtag is to create professional connections between social work students, practitioners, and academics across the planet. In these two posts, we describe how you can begin using the hashtag:

– #SWvirtualpal: Hashtagging for Connection on 9/24/16
– Social Work Educator’s Guide for #SWVirtualPal on 12/8/16

Responding to the NASW Draft Technology Standards (with too many colleagues to name) – These two post provide information on the initial set of revised technology standards for social work practice developed in 2016:

– Join the Convo – NASW needs feedback on Draft Technology Standards in SW on 7/8/16
– What Social Workers are saying about the NASW Draft Tech Standards? on 8/26/16

Learning Wheels with Amanda Taylor and Deborah Kellsey – The Learning Wheel is a collaborative tool that can be used in the classroom or as part of a conference to curate ideas, communication practices and other information. This post describes how I worked with Amanda and Deborah on a learning wheel for a local conference:

– Using Learning Wheels: The #APLOL16 Connected Conference on 11/18/16

Guest Educators’ Posts: These posts focus on technology in the social work classroom, specifically how to best incorporate social media into an assignment and how to introduce the importance of being proficient with technology as a social work with students.

– Social Media How-To Guide for Social Work Educators by Drs. Becky Anthony and Jennifer Jewell on 6/24/16
– Talking Technology Competency in the Social Work Classroom by Ms. Elise Johnson on 9/9/16

Conference Presentations: I attended four national conferences this year for a grand total of ten presentations. Topics ranged from teaching with technology to incorporating experiential learning experiences into social work curriculum through service learning, simulation and interprofessional collaboration.

Conference #1 – 33rd Annual Meeting for the Association of Baccalaureate Program Directors, March 30 – April 3, 2016