My Guidelines for using Digital & Social Tech in the Classroom and Beyond

Posted By Laurel Hitchcock on Feb 12, 2016

I recently started collaborating with a good colleague, Allison Currington of the University of Alabama’s School of Social Work, on a project to develop tools and resources for social work field educators about the professional use of social media in social work practice.  After several conversations, we realized we need to walk the walk, if we are going to talk the talk. So, we each decided to take a little journey to explore our own guidelines for using social media in the classroom and in our practice as social work educators.  Our end goal is to encourage social work students and field instructors to develop their own professional social media guidelines.

I started by reviewing what was others were saying about personal social media policies and practices.  I reviewed several policies, infographics (such as Social Worker’s Guide to Social Media from the University of Buffalo’s School of Social Work), articles, blog posts with recommendations (such as Dr. Julie Hank’s post), and even my own syllabi.   What follows is a set of guidelines that represent my own practices for using digital and social technologies as a social work educator.  I would love to hear your comments about these guidelines and would be very interested in any other social workers, students and educators who would be willing to share their own best practices or guidelines for using digital and social media.

Dr. Laurel Hitchcock’s Guidelines for using Digital & Social Technology in the Classroom and Practice

These guidelines outline how I strive to interact with students, colleagues and other professionals when using digital and social media.  Digital devices are laptops, tablets, smart phones and any form of wearable technology. Social media are websites and applications that allow people to create and share content and/or participate in social networking.  

Educational Outcomes for Live Tweeting with Students

Posted By Laurel Hitchcock on Jan 29, 2016

My first article of 2016 is co-authored with my good colleague, Jimmy Young from California State University San Marcos, and is about using live tweeting with social work students.  Here is a link to the article (with free access for the first 50 copies): Tweet, Tweet!: Using Live Twitter Chats in Social Work Education.

First, I want to thank my colleagues with #MacroSW Chat.  Their support and willingness to collaborate helped to make this assignment and study possible.

We conducted a small pilot study to see what our students thought about using Twitter in the classroom.  Jimmy and I have long supported the use of social media in social work education as a tool for professional development.  When students know how to use social media as a professional social worker, they will have a better understanding of the role of social and digital media in the life of 21st Century social workers, including the benefits of creating  professional learning networks and the pitfalls of potential ethical dilemmas.

#MacroSW Documentary Movie Night 1/28/16 – Growing up Trans

Posted By Laurel Hitchcock on Jan 22, 2016

Good news for those of you interested in the live #MacroSW chats!  We are now chatting every Thursday night at 8:00 PM CST/ 9:00 PM EST.  Next week, on January 28th,  I will be hosting our first our first Documentary Movie Night.  We will be watching Growing Up Trans produced by the PBS’s Frontline.  Here is the description of the movie from Frontline:

Just a generation ago, it was adults, not kids, who changed genders. But today, many children are transitioning, too — with new medical options, and at younger and younger ages. In Growing Up Trans, FRONTLINE takes viewers on an intimate and eye-opening journey inside the struggles and choices facing transgender kids and their families.

Here is a link the trailer and the movie (1 hour and 24 minutes): http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/frontline/film/growing-up-trans/.  You can watch the movie for free.

This movie shows what it is like for children in the US to transition genders from the individual and family perspectives.  As you watch the movie, put on your #MacroSW hat and think about some of the policy, research and other macro-level issues that surround the individuals and families in this movie.

Here are the questions we hope to discuss during the chat:

-From the movie, what are some of the challenges for transgender kids and their parents?

-What are some macro-level approaches to addressing these challenges?

-What do you think is the most important policy issue affecting transgender children? Why?

-What do you think most Americans don’t realize about children who are transgender?

-What single word best describes how the film made you feel?

-What’s next? How do we as social workers address the challenges experienced by transgender children?

Also, please follow our new Twitter handle – @OfficialMacroSW.

About #MacroSW:

#MacroSW is a collaboration of social workers, organizations, social work schools, and individuals working to promote macro social work practice. Macro social work practice focuses on changing larger systems, such as communities and organizations. It encompasses a broad spectrum of actions and ideas, ranging from community organizing and education to legislative advocacy and policy analysis. The chats are held weekly on Twitter every Thursday at 9 p.m. EST (6 p.m. PST). Click here for a list of chat partners. For information about how to participate in the #MacroSW chat, view our FAQs. For chat schedule and chat archives check out: http://macrosw.com

How to cite this post:

Hitchcock, L. I. (2016, January 22).#MacroSW Documentary Movie Night 1/28/16 – Growing up Trans[Blog Post]. Retrieved from https://laureliversonhitchcock.org/2016/01/22/macrosw-documentary-movie-night-12816-growing-up-trans/.

Job Shadowing on Twitter

Posted By Laurel Hitchcock on Jan 8, 2016

I’m always looking for a new way to incorporate Twitter into my social work courses.  So I was pleased when my colleague Joy Jones with UAB’s Career and Professional Services suggested a new idea to me – a virtual job shadowing experience on Twitter.  The event goes like this – a professional agrees to tweet about her job during a set date and time, students can follow along via Twitter, and then tweet back questions or comments to the professional.  Similar to a live twitter chat, students can use a computer, tablet or mobile device from anywhere, offering flexibility and the opportunity to engage with others who are also following the job shadowing. Joy had all the details worked out for an event including the job shadowing candidate, logistics, and a hashtag.  All I had to do was recruit the students.  I offered it as an extra credit opportunity for students in my two classes last semester.

The event happened on 11/18/15 from 1 – 5 pm with Madison Darling from Blanket Fort Hope, a local non-profit agency in Alabama fighting child human trafficking.  Madison agreed to tweet every 30 minutes about what she was doing that day and answer questions from students as frequently as possible.  We had about fifteen  participants total, along with myself and Joy.  Questions ranged from “what is like working with children” to “how do I volunteer with your agency.”  Madison and one of her colleagues did a great job answering questions and sharing about their agency and their job duties.  Not only were my students able to network with professionals, a connection was created between my academic department, our campus career services and a community partner.  Click here for a link to the transcript from the event, where you can read the tweets.

Joy and I will working on more of job shadowing events in the coming semester, and here are some suggestions I have for other social work faculty interested in hosting a similar event and/or incorporating this type of job shadowing into a learning activity:

Social Work Scholarship in the Age of Social Media

Posted By Laurel Hitchcock on Dec 8, 2015

It has been almost two months since the Council on Social Work Education’s Annual Program Meeting in Denver this past October (#APM2015), and I have been thinking a lot about one of the round table discussions I attended.  The topic was  “Blogs, Podcasts, and Tweets: Reconsidering Scholarship in the Age of Social Media” and the conversation was led by Jonathan Singer of the School of Social Work at Loyola University and Nancy  J. Smyth of School of Social Work at the University at Buffalo.  Its purpose was to engage participants in a dialogue about the ways social media are changing how social work educators and scholars think about, produce, disseminate and measure the outcomes of scholarship in social work.  I recorded the discussion with Periscope, a video recording app for Twitter, and you can watch the video here.  Be warned – the discussion started at 7:30 AM, requiring me to juggle my mobile phone with a large cappuccino.

There were about twenty other people present, representing all areas of social work academia (tenured and nontenured;  administrators, researchers and teachers; large research institutions to small liberal arts colleges).  Here are just some of the questions or concerns mentioned during this discussion:

– How can digital content (blog posts, tweets, podcasts) be incorporated into the tenure and promotion process?
– What is the best way to share ideas about scholarship via social media? Will it get scooped?
– How do we ensure a level of quality with social work scholarship that is published via social media?

I am not sure any of us walked away from the discussion with the answers to all our questions, but I believe the consensus was that social and digital media are powerful tools for sharing and discussing social work scholarship. To be clear,  I’m not arguing that social and digital media will replace the traditional forms of social work scholarship such as journals, books and conference presentations.  I know that writing this blog will not get me tenure, but it does provide me with different ways to connect with other scholars, share ideas and write about topics that don’t fit into traditional publication avenues.  Social media provide vital and rich ways to share, curate and discuss practice and research in social work.  I am convinced that today’s social work faculty need to become savvy enough to share and discuss social work scholarship in digital environments.  Here are my three reasons for using social media as part of my scholarship: