Keeping Up With #SWDE2017 (Social Work Distance Education Conference)

Sean Erreger LCSW
2 min readApr 15, 2017

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Here I go again, following another conference hashtag and curating it. I was disappointed I could not make to The 2017 Social Work Distance Education Conference. Last fall I had the pleasure of teaching my first distance education course for the University of Buffalo School of Social Work. I did a 1 credit course on Social Media For Professional Development.

By following the tweets from this years #SWDE2017, I learned I have to step up my game a little bit. The design of the course last fall was fairly forward facing. It was me just giving some articles and some related assignments. Following this conference from afar challenged me to think about how it should be more interactive with students. I found this inspiring…

Also the below slide about how technology can be part of the mix. This blog is often dedicated to thinking about how technology relates to clinical practice. Now I need to keep thinking about how technology can be leveraged for teaching and training…

Distance learning comes with it’s challenges especially for social work. However the more I learn, the more it fits. Social workers are charged with developing relationships and building bridges. What a better way to do this than create communities that traverse distances. Distance education models and technology give of the power to do so.

Technology was identified as one of the 12 Grand Challenges of Social Work. Teaching skills like using teleconferencing, social media skills for community organizing, and other technologies to aid in clinical practice will be essential. We need to find ways to put social work at the table…

“Telebehavioral health” limits SW frame. “Technology-mediated practice” or e-SW practice r much more inclusive — David Wilkerson #SWDE2017

— Elisabeth Carpenter (@ElisabethAnneCC) April 14, 2017

“Baking” technology into our social work practice is challenging but starts with our graduate education. In following this years tweets, I found distance education to be a great enactment of what clinical and macro social work may look like in the future. There were many wonderful tweets filled with insights and resources. If you are in social work distance learning or just want to learn the latest trends click on the below Storify curations…

Originally published at stuckonsocialwork.wordpress.com on April 15, 2017.

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Sean Erreger LCSW
Sean Erreger LCSW

Written by Sean Erreger LCSW

blogger, consultant #socialwork, #mentalhealth, suicide prevention. How tech & Social Media is changing change…blog: www.StuckOnSocialWork.Com

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