Twitter for your Professional Collaboration Network (PCN)

Posted By Laurel Hitchcock on Jan 31, 2020

Editor’s Note: This post is one in a series about how technology can be used to develop and sustain one’s professional network.  The idea for this post came from a think tank hosted by the University at Buffalo’s School of Social Work in June 2019, looking for a way to teach students in their new online Doctorate of Social Program (DSW) program about how to develop key stakeholder networks in relation to a substantive topic area. In this series, we are exploring the concept of a Professional Collaboration Network (PCN), which are technology-mediated user-centered relationship constellations designed to enhance or enrich connections, knowledge, and professional opportunities.  This post covers how you can use Twitter to create and support your PCN.

In light of our living in a time of rapid technological change and our professional mandate to keep up-to-date with the advances in our field, (Council on Social Work Education, 2015; National Association of Social Workers, 2018), social workers may benefit from building a professional collaboration network (PCN). We previously defined what a Professional Collaboration Network is this blog post: What is a professional collaboration network and why do you need one? 

In essence, a PCN is created by social workers who connect with other professionals online for the purpose of learning and exchanging information. Prior to the ubiquitous use of the internet, professionals would typically keep up with the latest developments in their field via networking with their peers at conferences and continuing education opportunities, as well as via printed newsletters, magazines and trade publications. Nowadays, there are many technological tools to facilitate interactions with individuals across different disciplines, states or the world. PCNs typically include various online communities such as Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook, social bookmarking sites and more.   

Podcast Assignment for the Social Work Classroom

Posted By Laurel Hitchcock on Jan 15, 2020

Editor’s Note: This blog post shares information about a podcast assignment developed and implemented in multiple social work classrooms over the past year.  This assignment is a collaboration between myself and Melanie Sage, Todd Sage & Michael Lynch of the University at Buffalo’s School of Social Work.  We share a copy of the assignment and rubric along with information about why social work educators might want to try this assignment in their own classroom.

Podcasts are now a well-known part of social work education.  With so many different types of social work podcasts, it is easy for an educator to assign a podcast instead of an article, asking students to listen instead of reading.  Examples of podcasts designed specifically for social work include:

• The Social Work Podcast by Dr. Jonathan Singer

• inSocial Work Podcast Series by the University at Buffalo’s School of Social Work

For a more comprehensive list of podcasts, check out this blog post written by one of us (Melanie):

• List of Podcasts for Social Work

Briefly, a podcast is an audio file made available on the Internet for downloading to a portable media player, computer, or other device.  Podcasts are easy to create and do not require many technical skills which making the technology a good fit for student assignment and for faculty who do not have a lot of technology experience.  One of us (Laurel) has been using and writing about podcast assignments for several years.  Here are links to a series of posts she wrote back in 2014 when she first started using podcasts in her classroom:

Review of Teaching & Learning in Social Work for 2019

Posted By Laurel Hitchcock on Dec 26, 2019

It is that time of year again –  the annual review of the Teaching & Learning in Social Work Blog.  This will be my fourth year reflecting on the work of this blog; the first end of the year post was in 2016.  This year, I am thinking more about my motivation for starting and maintaining this blog for the past seven years.  As I think back on why I started Teaching & Learning in Social Work, I’d have to say I wanted to be a more confident writer.  Academic writing is not easy.  This blog helped me to find my academic voice while allowing me to experiment with writing.  I try to be personable in the posts I write, using plain language and concise phrasing.  While I can say I am more comfortable with my professional writing, the greatest benefit to this blog is having space to share my work and the work of others in a very non-traditional space.  Publishing is a peer-reviewed journal is currency for academics, and it is a narrow, rigid, and polished way to share one’s work.  By writing blog posts about my work early in the process, I can share with a wider audience including students, social work practitioners and professionals from other fields. I can also as publish work that may never find a home as a journal article, but is still of value to others.  For example, I write frequently about my assignments and classroom activities on this blog.  I also post information about my conference presentations here so others can easily reference the materials. Overall, I can say with confidence that writing and publishing Teaching & Learning in Social Work has truly be beneficial and motivating for my academic writing.

For 2019, I had three goals for improving the blog: 

What is a Professional Collaboration Network (PCN) & why do you need one?

Posted By Laurel Hitchcock on Dec 17, 2019

Editor’s Note: This is the first in a series of blog posts about how technology can be used to develop and sustain one’s professional network.  The idea for this post came from a think tank hosted by the University at Buffalo’s School of Social Work in June 2019, that I attended along with the other authors of this post. Our goal at this think tank was to brainstorm how to teach students in their new online Doctorate of Social Program (DSW) program about how to develop key stakeholder networks using digital and social technologies. In this series, we are exploring the concept of a Professional Collaboration Network (PCN), which are technology-mediated user-centered relationship constellations designed to enhance or enrich connections, knowledge, and professional opportunities. This post covers the “whys” and “whats” of a PCN.

Social media and other forms of digital technologies are ubiquitous tools for communication in the 21st century, including in the lives of clients and communities served by social workers. It is clear technological tools are being used to create and maintain relationships when a third of America’s marriages now start online (Cacioppo, Cacioppo, Gonzaga, Ogburn, & VanderWeele, 2013), and 69% of internet users utilize social media, 74% of those daily (Pew Research, 2018). Social work professionals need to understand how these tools work, and learn to use them for creating and maintaining professional relationships with colleagues, communities, and the vulnerable populations served by the profession, and disseminating information to communities of interest.