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.

Feedback from the summer on Remind, a free messaging service

Posted By Laurel Hitchcock on Aug 21, 2014

Remind: www.remind.com

About two weeks ago, I finished up an online summer course where I used Remind, a free texting service, to keep students updated about the course. I have previously written about texting with students, and I think it’s a useful tool for social work educators.  I learned about how to use Remind from Dr. Natalie Jones who wrote a blog post for me about her experiences with the service in her online and face-to-face courses.  I was open to trying Remind myself because of research that suggests students who take online courses  highly value course announcements and reminders (Ausburn, 2004). While I frequently respond to students who text me, I was anxious to learn if students would want or appreciate the group text messages.

When Technology and Social Work assemble in Higher Education – Using Remind 101 by Dr. Nathalie P. Jones

Posted By Laurel Hitchcock on Jun 10, 2014

Dr. Nathalie P. Jones

Nathalie P. Jones, PhD, MSW is an Assistant Professor of Social Work at Tarleton State University.  In this blog post, Dr. Jones writes about her experiences using a free texting services for educators, Remind 101, with her BSW students.  

As a college professor, I have been on a quest to implement technology within social work courses. Particularly, I have become very fluent with the use of Remind 101. This platform provides the option to text learners who are currently enrolled in my online Working with Aging Populations course which equips learners to provide services and advocate for individuals who are in the later life phase. Most of these learners are classified as non-traditional who are usually working during the day and completing homework assignments during the evenings. In the online setting, when I post announcements in the course room, I use Remind 101 to provide a follow up text message to prompt the learners’ attention.  The benefits of Remind 101 include providing opportunities for me to send out last minute reminders, assignment extensions and class cancellations. During my current course, I have not experienced any challenges.

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.