AL/MS 2014 Social Work Education Conference

Posted By Laurel Hitchcock on Oct 10, 2014

This October day finds me in Tuskegee, AL presenting at the 2014 Alabama-Mississippi Social Work Education Conference. The purpose of this post is to provide supplemental information for today’s presentation. My session will focus on how social work educators can incorporate social media into their pedagogy.

Here is a link to the Prezi that I will show during the presentation.

#MacroSW Live Twitter Chat on 10/28/14

Posted By Laurel Hitchcock on Oct 3, 2014

Jimmy Young (@Jimmysw) and I (@laurelhitchcock) have designed a social media assignment for social work students that involve students watching a documentary and then participating in a live Twitter chat. The assignment is meant for a policy or macro class and involves students watching the documentary Inequality for All, and then participating in a live Twitter chat on October 28^th at 9pm Eastern Standard Time. We have partnered with the wonderful folks that conduct the #MacroSW chat for this special event and will be using their hashtag #MacroSW to facilitate the live chat.

We are interested in piloting this assignment in classrooms across the country and hope that other social work or human service educators might participate by including the assignment in class and providing feedback. Of course if you would rather just join the Live Chat only, that would be wonderful as we hope to have many individuals participate.

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: