Category Archives: technology in social work

Digital Technology for Social Work Practice with Laurel Hitchcock: #MacroSW Chat — Jan. 23, 2020

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#MacroSW Twitter Chats are held each Thursday night at 9 PM Eastern / 8 PM Central / 6 PM Pacific.

Welcome to the first #MacroSW chat of 2020!
Recently, the chat organizers made a commitment to address White Supremacy in social work. For this chat, we ask that you keep in mind the following:
What effect does White Supremacy have on access and utilization of technology in professional practice?
How do social workers in professional practice experience or observe White Supremacy in regard to the use of technology? Do you or your colleagues see areas of concern? These questions provide a lens with which to consider digital technology in social work practice and can enrich discussions about our profession.

In the inaugural Spring 2020 #MacroSW Chat,  “Digital Technology for Social Work Practice,” we will look at how social work practitioners can use digital technology in our practice. Laurel Hitchcock @laurelhitchcock https://twitter.com/laurelhitchcock, whose blog “Teaching and Learning in Social Work” https://www.laureliversonhitchcock.org/, regularly addresses digital and other technology will lead the chat.  We hope to hear from practitioners, as well as students who are developing their own digital literacy and professional use of this technology.

Hosted by the University at Buffalo School of Social Work @UBSSW https://twitter.com/UBSSW

See the entire Spring 2020 schedule of chats here: https://macrosw.com/chat-schedule/
The chats will discuss white supremacy in social work (on April 9, 2020), immigration, organized labor, policy-focused and nontraditional jobs, decolonizing field education, and lots more.

New to twitter chats? Here are some answers to frequently asked questions: https://macrosw.com/macrosw-twitter-chat-faqs/.

Discussion Questions:

Q1: Why do #SocialWorker need to incorporate social & digital technology into their practice with clients and communities?

Q2: What are the benefits of using technology in #socialwork practice with clients & communities?

Q3:  What are the challenges of using technology in #socialwork practice with clients & communities?

Q4: In what ways might digital technology empower marginalized populations and communities? How could #Socialworkers support marginalized populations with digital technology?
(Note: In terms of race, class, ethnicity, national origin, gender identity and more, “marginalized communities” may or may not have overarching commonalities. Different marginalized communities may have idiosyncratic issues that chat participants might want to address.)

Q5: How do you use digital technology in your #socialwork practice? Or how would you like to use it?

Q6: As a helping professional, what do you want to learn more about related to using digital & social technology in professional practice?

smartphone so me icons DOCFORCE

Photo: Docforce

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Resources:

Developing a Professional & Ethical Online Presence for Social Work Practice (Conference Presentation) (10/2/19) with Allison Curington https://www.laureliversonhitchcock.org/?s=Developing+a+Professional+%26+Ethical+Online+Presence+for+Social+Work+Practice

Three Ways to Model Good Boundaries with Technology in Social Work Ed (9/2/19) https://www.laureliversonhitchcock.org/2019/09/03/three-ways-to-model-good-boundaries-with-technology-in-social-work-ed/

What is a Professional Collaboration Network (PCN) & why do you need one? (12/17/19) https://www.laureliversonhitchcock.org/2019/12/17/what-is-a-professional-collaboration-network-and-why-do-you-need-one/

#SWDE2019 Keynote – What role will Social Workers choose in shaping the digital future? (4/13/19) with Laurel Hitchcock, Melanie Sage & Nancy J. Smyth https://www.laureliversonhitchcock.org/2019/04/13/swde2019-keynote-what-role-will-social-workers-choose-in-shaping-the-digital-future/

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For Social Work Educators:
Hitchcock, L.I., , Melanie Sage, and Nancy J. Smyth. (2019). Teaching Social Work with Digital Technology. Alexandria, VA: CSWE Press. https://www.cswe.org/Bookstore/Books/Teaching-Social-Work-With-Digital-Technology

Learn more about the #SWTech online community:
#SWTech: The Beginnings of an Online Community (3/31/19)

#SWTech – An Introduction and History of the Online Group (8/15/19) with Melanie Sage, Jonathan Singer & Nancy J. Smyth

Our Guest Expert:

LaurelHitchcock Laurel Hitchcock, MPH, MSW, PhD, is an Associate Professor in the Department of Social Work at the University of Alabama at Birmingham. She was a regular host and contributor to the #MacroSW Chat from 2014 through 2018. Laurel co-authored “Teaching Social Work with Digital Technology,” (2019), with Melanie Sage and Nancy Smyth. She is co-founder of  #SWVirtualPal, with Dr Amanda M L Taylor-Beswick; this is an online community for social workers from around the globe, encouraging collaboration on international projects. Her “Teaching and Learning in Social Work”blog: https://www.laureliversonhitchcock.org/.  Follow her on Twitter at @laurelhitchcock.

 

PREP SCHOOL NEGRO: Periscope of the discussion on Race, Racism and Leveraging Technology for Social Justice

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Post by Pat Shelly

Periscope by Nancy J. Smyth

 

flyer-prep-school-negro

 

 

 

Thirty years before our current election cycle’s talk about racial disparities, killings streamed on Facebook and the rise of the #Occupy and #Blacklivesmatter movement, a young Black man was offered an opportunity for what he hoped was a better life.  André Robert Lee’s full scholarship to attend a Philadelphia prep school was supposed to be his way out of the ghetto, but this elite education came at a high personal cost.

 

Prep School Negro documents André’s journey back in time to revisit the events of his adolescence while also spending time with present-day prep school students of color and their classmates to see how much has really changed inside the ivory tower. What he discovers along the way is the poignant and unapologetic truth about who really pays the consequences for yesterday’s accelerated desegregation and today’s racial naiveté.

 

A screening of Prep School Negro was held on September 19, 2016 as part of the University at Buffalo’s School of Social Work series on Social Work and Emerging Technologies, led by affiliated faculty member Mike Langlois, a clinical social worker and educator.  After the screening, Mike engaged André Lee, the director of Prep School Negro and producer, civil rights educator and activist, in a discussion on race, racism, the seismic shifts in technology and how to leverage emerging technologies in the fight for social justice.

 

André Robert Lee, filmmaker

André Robert Lee, filmmaker

 

 

 

 

 

 

Mike Langlois, LICSW

Mike Langlois, LICSW

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Full-length version of Prep School Negro is now available on PBS
(through Feb. 10, 2017):
http://www.pbs.org/video/2365172448/

 

Here are links to the Periscope recordings:

 

We welcome any comments, and will pass any received along to André and Mike.

The Age of #DigitalLiteracy and the Media Revolution

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By Pat Shelly

 

Where do you get most of your news of the world?
What are skills needed for digital literacy?
Do you use social media for any part of your school or professional work?
Will universal digital literacy lead to world peace?

 

 

The Age of Digital Literacy is Now

 

The University at Buffalo observed the 2016 International Education Week with lectures, film, student events, exhibits and a keynote: “The Media Revolution: What it Means for You” by Geneva Overholser.

 

She has worked as an editor, ombudsperson, journalist at many top papers, including the New York Times and the Washington Post. She lived in and wrote from Paris and Kinshasa over a period of five years.

 

Overholser spoke of the radical change from traditional, or “legacy” media – newspapers, radio, network television, cable TV – to new media technologies. These include social networking, instant messaging, blogs (coined from “web” and “log”), internet video (YouTube), digital media sites (Vice, Vox, Gawker), radio podcasts, political news outlets (Politico, Democracy Now!), social media (Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Tumblr). All are accessible from the palm of the hand through smart phones and other mobile devices.

 

The cost of such technology is becoming less and less expensive. One survey she cited found that Africa is leading the world in the rate of  adoption of mobile internet use.

 

Photo credit: Kainan Guo, The Spectrum

Photo credit: Kainan Guo, The Spectrum

Ms. Overholser spoke to the necessity of being literate in this new realm of media. “[N]ow, thanks to new technology, EVERYBODY owns a press.” We are our own reporter, editor, and publisher. “… thanks to social media, each of us has a limitless, unmediated space for communicating with one another.”
We both consume and contribute to this public space.

 

 

 

 

What’s in your diet?

Living in the digital age also means maintaining an healthy diet while consuming media, and avoiding too much of the media junk food. This diet comes from “countless numbers of sources – a cacophony of information that runs the gamut from useless to reliable, from base to inspiriting.” She warned that anything anonymous lacks accountability. Regulating one’s diet has another dimension: sometimes we need to refrain from consuming toxic elements.

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Live from #2014APM! CSWE’s Tech in Social Work as Told in Tweets

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by Pat Shelly  @UBSSW

 

I recently had the pleasure of attending the Council on Social Work Education (CSWE) 60th Annual Program Meeting (APM) – one of the largest conferences for social work educators. (CSWE is recognized by the Council for Higher Education Accreditation as the sole accrediting agency for social work education – BSW and MSW – in the U.S., and sets the Educational Policy and Accreditation Standards (EPAS) for all social work schools).

 

 

At the APM, there are 40 tracks which attendees can follow throughout the four days of events. Track topics range from Addictions, African Americans and the African Diaspora, or International Issues  to Technology in Social Work, Values and Ethics, or Violence Against Women and Their Children.

 

 

Dr. Jimmy Young presenting in SW and social media. @JimmySW #2014APM http://t.co/l1LlpwBJio

Dr. Jimmy Young presenting in SW and social media. @JimmySW #2014APM pic.twitter.com/l1LlpwBJio
Laura Nissen@lauranissen

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