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:

Online Toolkit for developing a Personal Learning Network with Twitter

Posted By Laurel Hitchcock on Sep 3, 2015

One of the benefits of having an online presence is making connections with professionals from all over the world. I met Dorlee Michaeli, MBA, LMSW over Twitter a year or so ago. She created and manages Social Work.Career, a blog that provides a variety of resources to help advance an individual’s social work career  for current students or  experienced mental health professionals. In addition to career-related resources, there are interviews, key learnings from conferences/workshops, licensure exam tips, self-care guidance and more for life-long learning as a social work professional.

This summer, we created online toolkits for social work educators based on our blogs. Dorlee’s toolkit, Social Work Career’s Online Toolkit for the Social Work Educator, showcases several blog posts from Social Work.Career that will help prepare undergraduate or graduate social work students become more prepared for a career in social work.  Also included with the toolkit are some possible classroom assignments/tasks. We tip our hat to Ellen Belluomini who wrote this blog post; she was our inspiration for creating the exercises to meet the 2015 CSWE Social Work Competencies.

Here is my toolkit about developing a personal learning network (PLN) with Twitter:

A personal learning network (PLN) offers social workers and students a practical tool to stay current and share information about latest professional news, practice knowledge, and cutting-edge research findings.  I recently wrote about how a social worker can set-up a PLN using professional accounts on different social media platforms.

My favorite social media platform for my own PLN is Twitter, and this post offers tips for using Twitter effectively to maintain and engage with your PLN.  All of these tips come from my blog, Teaching & Learning in Social Work, which focuses on teaching and learning in social work.  While some of the original posts focus on the social work classroom, the practices and content can be easily adapted by any social work practitioner for their own use with a PLN.  Here are eight great ideas for using Twitter with your PLN:

Personal Learning Networks for Social Workers

Posted By Laurel Hitchcock on Jul 1, 2015

Actually, you probably already have a professional learning network (PLN) of your own, and didn’t even notice it.  A professional learning network (also known as a personalized learning network) includes the tools and processes used by a social worker to stay up-to-date and share information about current news, practice knowledge and the latest research findings. Prior to the explosion in online content and tools, a PLN might have included an article from trusted daily newspaper or a print version of a child welfare journal, which you photocopied to share with employees or colleagues (or if you are a social work educator, with students as part of a class discussion). Today, a PLN exists when a social worker uses social media to collect information related to professional interests, shares this information with others, and also collaborates with others on projects (Richardson & Manacebelli, 2011). For example, a social worker’s PLN might include the use of email alerts from online newspapers, blogs and scholarly journals to receive updates about child welfare research, and then shares this information with employees, colleagues or students via Twitter or a curated list on Diigo, a social bookmarking tool.

There are many benefits to developing a digital PLN with social media platforms such as Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn:

– First, you can develop a network of trusted resources (individuals, organizations and publishers) that you can access at almost anytime. While learning from other professionals is nothing new, social media expands the number and variety of content, people and groups that you can access such as professionals from other countries, open-access peer-reviewed scholarship, and first-hand accounts of other people’s experiences. Because social media platforms are available 24/7, you can connect with your network when you want and from most any digital device including a laptop, tablet or smart phone.

– Second, you can easily stay up-to-date on any professional interest, quickly add or expand an interest on your network. For example, if you are interested in homelessness, you might start by following local and national housing advocacy agencies on Twitter and, in the process, you might discover individuals who are tweeting about their personal experiences with homelessness.

Career Building Skills for Social Workers: #MacroSW Chat 5/14 8 PM CST

Posted By Laurel Hitchcock on May 5, 2015

Melissa Whatley, UAB Career & Professional Development

Joy Jones, UAB Career & Professional Development

This is a re-post from the #MacroSW Chat website.  I will be hosting this chat on 5/14/15 so please join us!  Click here for more information on how to participate in a live Twitter chat.

Are you a newly graduated social worker looking for a job? Thinking about going back to graduate school for that MSW? Then join us for a chat with guest experts Melissa Whatley & Joy Jones from the University of Alabama at Birmingham’s (UAB) Career & Professional Development. They will be answering your most pressing questions about searching and interviewing for that first social work job, how to tell your professional story through a resume, and best practices for networking, off-line & online.

We also invite social workers to share their own experiences about finding a social work job, especially a macro position, how they made the decision to go back to graduate school, or their best tip for networking, interviewing or building a resume.

Here is how the chat will work:
Melissa (tweeting from @uabcareerserve) and Joy (tweeting from @UABJoy ) will be answering your most pressing career development questions so come prepared.  You can also submit your questions in advance to @laurelhitchcock.  Melissa and Joy will be selecting questions from your submissions/posts.  (Disclaimer: We may not be able to get to everyone’s question due to the time limit of the chat). Possible topics include:

1. What needs to be included on my resume?
2. How can I use social media to get a job?
3. What can I expect during a job interview?
4. What do I need to know to be successful in a social work career?

We also invite anyone joining our chat to share their thoughts and best career advice along side Melissa & Joy.

How to participate in a Live Twitter Chat – Tips for Social Workers

Posted By Laurel Hitchcock on Jan 8, 2015

Live Twitter chats (a scheduled event when Twitter users communicate via tweets in real time) can be a great way for social workers and students to stay informed about all types of issues and interests relevant to the profession. For example, medical experts from the Mayo Clinic frequently host chats to share and discuss new treatment options in healthcare. Professionals can also use this tool to meet and talk (for free) with new colleagues from just around the corner to the other side the world. A good example is the #SPSM chat which hosts a weekly forum for mental health professionals interested in using social media to prevent suicide. During a chat like this one, a social worker might engage with influential thought leaders in their field and make their own contributions to the professional conversations that influence and shape social work practice. The Political Social Worker suggests that Twitter can be a powerful networking tool for social workers in her blog post The Benefits of Live Twitter Chats.

But participating in a live Twitter chat requires preparation. Live chats move fast and have guidelines to set the parameters of the conversation. More obvious is the need to be familiar with Twitter (a microblogging platform) before participating in a chat. Understanding what a tweet is and how to write one is a must to chat on Twitter. Being able to communicate and network with professionals in online environments is considered an important digital media skill for any 21^st century professional including social workers (Rheingold, 2012).

Here are some practical tips for social work students, educators and practitioners interested in being part of a live Twitter chat:

Twitter for Social Work Student Organizations

Posted By Laurel Hitchcock on Sep 11, 2014

About two weeks ago Cyber Social Worker (@CyberSocialWork) sent me a direct message via Twitter asking if and how I work with social work student organizations to use social media, specifically Twitter.  The short answer was…well, not really…but what a great idea!  I immediately sent a tweet to the student social work organizations that I was already following on Twitter, asking how they engaged via social media.  Then, I created a public list of Social Work Students Organizations for my Twitter profile.  While a few dedicated student groups responded, I had only five organizations to add to my list.  Is this because I am not very connected in the Twitterverse, especially with social work student organizations? Or maybe student groups in social work are just not using Twitter?  Maybe they are on Facebook or Instagram? Or are they organizing the old-school way with paper and pens in an empty classroom after hours? Social work students and educators may be missing an opportunity here.