#SWDE2016 Teaching & Learning Professional Social Work Skills w/ Twitter
On Day Two of the Social Work Distance Education Conference, I will be presenting a workshop about the work Jimmy Young and I have done with Twitter in the classroom. If you are at the conference today, please join me in the B& O Room at 3:45 PM for the workshop. Our work focuses on the growing awareness that Twitter, a micro-blogging social media platform, can be a valuable tool in social work education to help students develop and practice social work competencies. This workshop will inform participants about the development, implementation and assessment of different assignments using Twitter for teaching social welfare policy and macro social work practice. Sample assignments, practical tips and a demonstration of Twitter will be provided to participants. The learning objectives for the workshop include:
1.Understand how the social media platform Twitter can be incorporated into assignments for social work courses to advance learning of the profession’s competencies.
2. Demonstrate how social work educators can assess attainment of competency among students using a social media assignment paired with a rubric for evaluation of the assignment’s learning outcomes.
3. Appreciate the role of professional collaboration in the development, implementation and assessment of social media-based assignments.
Here are some of the resources from the workshop:
Prezi Slides – Teaching & Learning Professional Social Work Skills w/ Twitter Workshop
How to Participate in a Live Twitter Chat – Tips for Social Workers
#SWDE2016 Incorporating Digital & Social Technologies into Social Work Education
Today is the Day 1 of the Second Annual Social Work Distance Education Conference, and I am lucky enough to be presenting with Drs. Melanie Sage (University of North Dakota) and Nancy J. Smyth (University of Buffalo, SUNY) about how to incorporate digital and social technologies into social work education. Our workshop will inform participants about the mechanics as well as the advantages and disadvantages of incorporating digital and social technologies assignments into social work courses. Topics to be covered include the importance of digital literacy and how to use theory to inform the integration of technology into their online courses. Participants will learn about example assignments and learning activities for social work courses that incorporating digital and social media such as microblogging, designing infographics, and creating a video. By the end of the workshop, participants will:
1. Understand the importance of digital literacy in 21st century social work practice.
2. Demonstrate how digital and social technologies can be incorporated into assignments for social work courses.
3. Appreciate the role of theory to support the development and implementation of technology-based assignments.
Here is a link to the slides from the workshop: https://www.slideshare.net/secret/8jgUUNwPcTPt46.
We also shared the following handout: Technology-Based Learning Task List for Social Work Education.
Using Pinterest in Undergraduate Social Work Education – #BPDTX16
March 31st will be Day Two for me at #BPDTX16 and I will be presenting on how Pinterest can be incorporated into undergraduate education. My UAB colleague, Dr. Lisa Baker, and I developed and implemented a social media-based assignment using Pinterest in our HBSE course sequence last year. Even though Lisa won’t be able attending BPD this year, I’m looking forward to talking about this assignment and our assessment outcomes. The session is from 11:15 AM-12:30 PM in Majestic 4 on 3/31/16.
We will focus on how practitioners are increasingly using social media to interact with client systems. As such, educators and students should recognize the role social media plays in developing practice related competencies and connecting to a larger learning network. Our workshop presents the development, implementation and evaluation of Pinterest assignments in undergraduate education.
Learning objectives for this session include:
1. Participants will explore the use of Pinterest as a teaching tool in undergraduate courses, following an evidence-based model of assignment development, implementation and evaluation.
2. Participants will become aware of the context in which students complete social media assignments and the role social media plays in helping students develop professional self.
3. Participants will discuss caveats to developing social media assignments and learn how such assignments help develop practice competencies.
Here is a link to the slides from the presentation: Using Pinterest in Undergraduate Social Work Education Slides on SlideShare.
Also, you can download the two rubrics from the presentation here:
Social Media and Technology Basics for the Social Work Educator – #BPDTX16
Welcome to #BPDTX2016! Stephen Baldridge of Abilene Christian University and I are facilitating a pre-conference workshop about social media basics for the social work educator on 3/30/16 from 1:00 – 4:00 PM. We originally created this workshop with Jimmy Young of California State University – San Marcos, but he won’t be making it to BPD this year.
Our goal for the workshop is to introduce social work educators to the world of social and digital technologies that can be effectively incorporated into the classroom. We will help bridge the gap between understanding and best practice by demonstrating how to use some of the social media platforms. Upon completion, participants will have several practical, “usable” tools to immediately implement in their courses.
Learning Objectives for the workshop include:
1. Understand how a minimum of 3 social media platforms can be incorporated into assignments for social work courses.
2. Recognize/identify a minimum of 2 ways using social and digital media can promote professional development among social work educators.
3. Appreciate the role of collaboration to support the development and implementation of technology-based assignments.
Slides for the presentations can be accessed here: http://www.slideshare.net/secret/CSjdjAcaZ9UYHo
Here is a link to my blog post about My Guidelines for using Digital & Social Tech in the Classroom and Beyond.
Using #MacroSW in the Classroom
#MacroSW is a live weekly Twitter chat for anyone interested in macro-level social work practice. The chat partners include practitioners and academics with a passion for working with policy, communities and organizations. In full self-disclosure, I have been an active partner with #MacroSW for almost a year now, and value the opportunity to be part of this online community.
Why use #MacroSW in the classroom?
Simply put, it is an incredibly engaging way to learn about macro social work practice. When students participate in an hour-long chat, they are engaging in the principles of Connected Learning, a theory that incorporates the digital technology into the learning process (Ito et al., 2013). Connected Learning suggests that learning in the 21st century must be driven simultaneously by the interests of the learner (Interest-Driven) and the academic requirements (Academically-Oriented) while occurring in an environment that supports openness, sharing and feedback with peers and others (Peer-Supported) (Ito et al., 2013). For example, if the goal of your class is for students to learn social work practice with communities and organizations, #MacroSW offers weekly topics related to social welfare policy, research, and practice with community and organizations (Interest-Driven) that are hosted and attended by a variety of social work professionals including students, academics, policy analysts and practitioners (Peer-Supported). Each chat includes a blog post on our website, numerous resources for the week’s topic, and a chat transcript which allow any social work educator to easily incorporate #MacroSW into a course or a specific assignment (Academically-Oriented).
How can you incorporate #MacroSW into your class?
There are four things you want to consider when creating an assignment with #MacroSW in your class:
1. Setting-up a Twitter Account: Students will need to create a free Twitter account, understand the basics of how to use Twitter, and be familiar with how to participate in a live chat. As the instructor, you will want to model for your students so set-up your own account too. Here are some resources:
Educational Outcomes for Live Tweeting with Students
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.
Teaching & Learning in Social Work by Laurel Iverson Hitchcock is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License
Laurel Hitchcock
Photo Credit: Jared Bash
