Using Pinterest in Undergraduate Social Work Education – #BPDTX16

Posted By Laurel Hitchcock on Mar 31, 2016

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:

Pinterest Rubric

Pinterest Meta Rubric

Social Media and Technology Basics for the Social Work Educator – #BPDTX16

Posted By Laurel Hitchcock on Mar 30, 2016

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

Posted By Laurel Hitchcock on Mar 14, 2016

#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:

• Twitter Help Center
• Low-Stakes Twitter Assignment for Social Work Educators
• How to participate in a Live Twitter Chat – Tips for Social Workers

My Guidelines for using Digital & Social Tech in the Classroom and Beyond

Posted By Laurel Hitchcock on Feb 12, 2016

I recently started collaborating with a good colleague, Allison Currington of the University of Alabama’s School of Social Work, on a project to develop tools and resources for social work field educators about the professional use of social media in social work practice.  After several conversations, we realized we need to walk the walk, if we are going to talk the talk. So, we each decided to take a little journey to explore our own guidelines for using social media in the classroom and in our practice as social work educators.  Our end goal is to encourage social work students and field instructors to develop their own professional social media guidelines.

I started by reviewing what was others were saying about personal social media policies and practices.  I reviewed several policies, infographics (such as Social Worker’s Guide to Social Media from the University of Buffalo’s School of Social Work), articles, blog posts with recommendations (such as Dr. Julie Hank’s post), and even my own syllabi.   What follows is a set of guidelines that represent my own practices for using digital and social technologies as a social work educator.  I would love to hear your comments about these guidelines and would be very interested in any other social workers, students and educators who would be willing to share their own best practices or guidelines for using digital and social media.

Dr. Laurel Hitchcock’s Guidelines for using Digital & Social Technology in the Classroom and Practice

These guidelines outline how I strive to interact with students, colleagues and other professionals when using digital and social media.  Digital devices are laptops, tablets, smart phones and any form of wearable technology. Social media are websites and applications that allow people to create and share content and/or participate in social networking.