Remind 101 – Free Texting App for Educators

Posted By Laurel Hitchcock on Jun 3, 2014

I am trying out a new app this summer in my online public health social work course – Remind101.  It’s a free and confidential texting service for educators who want to send reminders and other information to students.  I heard about it from an episode on NPR’s Marketplace about how venture capitalists in the US are investing in education technology.
During an interview with the company’s CEO, he mentioned one of the motivations for designing the program was to use texting to help kids with disabilities better manage their coursework.  This is exactly why I started texting with my students.  Several years ago, I had a student in class who had difficulty hearing. The student suggested that we try sending text messages when a translator was not available, and it worked great. Since then, I give students in my courses the option of sending me a text message to communicate with me.

Videos as Tools of Advocacy in Social Work Pedagogy – BPD 2014 Conference

Posted By Laurel Hitchcock on Mar 22, 2014

This is my third and last day at the  2014 annual meeting for the Association of Baccalaureate Social Work Program Directors in Louisville, KY.   Today, I’m presenting with Dr. Andrew Battista with the University of Montevallo about a video assignment we developed for a social work policy course,  and the purpose of this post is to provide supplemental information for today’s presentation.  

#BPD2014 Presentation on Teaching Professional Social Work Skills with Twitter

Posted By Laurel Hitchcock on Mar 20, 2014

I am attending the 2014 annual meeting for the Association of Baccalaureate Social Work Program Directors in Louisville, KY. Today is Day 1 of the conference for me, and I’m presenting with Dr. Jimmy Young of the University of Nebraska at Kearney (@Jimmysw) about using Twitter in the classroom.  We presented this information at CSWE’s annual program meeting back in October, and the purpose of this post is to provide supplemental information for today’s presentation.  If you are attending the conference, please join us in Room Kentucky D at 11:15 AM in the conference venue.  Or follow our live demo on Twitter starting at 11:45 AM EST with the hashtag #swktweets.  

Using Storify in the Classroom: A Student’s Perspective from Natalie Savoy

Posted By Laurel Hitchcock on Mar 10, 2014

MSW Student Natalie Savoy

Back in January, Dr. Jamie Mitchell from Wayne State University wrote about an assignment for her Human Behavior in the Social Environment Theory class that incorporated Storify, a social media platform that allows users to curate a digital narrative about any topic.  The assignment required students to articulate how a theory of their choosing could be applied to a real-world, under-served population or problem of interest using Storify.  As a follow-up to Dr. Mitchell’s post, I asked one her MSW students, Natalie Savoy, to share her thoughts on the assignment, what it was like to use social media in the classroom and how social media might be incorporated in her future role as a social worker.  Here are Natalie’s responses to my questions:

What was your initial reaction to using social media for an assignment in your Human Behavior in the Social Environment Theory course?

Podcasting for Social Work Students, Part 3 – Advice for designing the assignment from Jonathan Singer

Posted By Laurel Hitchcock on Feb 14, 2014

One of the experts in social work podcasting is Jonathan Singer who runs the Social Work Podcast.  He has been podcasting since 2007, and the goal of his work is to disseminate research by and for social workers to improve their practice and outcomes for clients.  I spoke with Jonathan about his thoughts on working with students to develop their own podcasts and he recommended educators considering the following three points as they develop podcast assignments: