I used to blog about conferences I’ve attended, until Covid stopped all my work travel. the April Social Work Distance Education con is online again this year and I’ll blog that, because why not.
Author Archives: Stephen Cummings
A (very) basic introduction to Twitter for social workers.
I gave a brief presentation to field instructors today. Here’s the presentation I used.
#MacroSW Chat 5/16/2019: Sex Workers and Stigma, Suicide, and Sexual Violence
Our #MacroSW chats return this week. While I won’t be able to attend, I’ll be reviewing the transcripts for the podcast next week.
#SWDE2019 Day 3 Visual Twitter: People really do attend the final sessions here.
Conferences start with large groups committed to learning, and end with individuals scheduling separate rideshares. My conference experiences usually see people giving hugs and quick good-byes, scattered throughout the last twelve hours. Getting assigned the last day to do a presentation usually means a near-empty cavernous room and a feeling of rushed, quiet endings.
So it was to my surprise that a panel on which I joined was well-attended. This is, I suspect, at least due in part to the connected nature of the participants at #SWDE2018. The planners use the Guidebook app which facilitates conversation. I tended to rely on Twitter to connect using the conference hashtag, with #MacroSW, #swtech, #weteachwithTech facilitating those connections.
I’ll aggregate more visual tweets for this last day, I’ll post one final comment soon after.
Here are some highlights from Day 3. If you follow the original Twitter links here, you’ll often find threads connecting more information and insight to these singular posts.
Presentations
Resources
Moments and Farewells
#SWDE2019 Day 1, continued: Blogging the Con.
In earlier versions of my conference blog posts, I’d try to get into the presentations I attended. Twitter and Wakelet have upended that need, and that’s good, because at their best, those platforms simply allow people to crowdsource. That’s what I am trying to do here: aggregating. I am hoping to get a decent crowdsourcing of material from the #SWDE2019 conference overall, which I will share here. For the full, unedited posting stream, head over to Twitter and follow the #SWDE2019 hashtag. Follow the participants in that thread, as well as the #swtech and #edtech hashtags. Everyone is welcome to connect.
Selfies and Portraits
Presentations
Reception
Resources
Blogging the Conference: #SWDE2019 Day 2: The One Where Someone Got Tenure
Dr. Nathalie Jones learns she has been awarded tenure while sitting in the lobby. She apparently learned via text (#swtech):
Selfies and portraits
Presentations
Blogging the conference, #SWDE2019 Day 1 (Brief) Recap: We need to extend our reach.
I’ve blogged the Social Work Distance Education Conference before, and my tips for any conference organizers haven’t changed. Many thanks to Our Lady of The Lake University for all their effort in making social media engagement a success. Some good things that organizers like OLLU do:
- Establish and promote the official hashtag early and often.
- Make sure nobody else is using it (this happens with some frequency; another conference I attended years ago used the same hashtag as a music event in Southeast Asia.)
- Make the detailed conference schedule available to participants who can’t be present. A lot of colleagues want to learn from the presentations at a conference, but can’t make it.
- Make the Twitter engagement board easy to see. When participants are here, they see first-hand what is being shared via Twitter.
Presenters are networking while they disseminate their knowledge, of course. Here are my quick thoughts:
- If you have a professional Twitter account, or other social media hub that communicates to your audience who you are and the work you do, make that handle known. It’s more meaningful to me than a standard business card. (In fact, put your @ on your business card.)
- Put your name on every one of your slides, and consider giving permission for attendees to share your presentation live. I live-tweet with permission. When I can’t attend a con, it’s at least helpful to me to know how to find you and follow your work.
I say this because I think the #SWDE conference is incredibly valuable, and I cannot thank OLLU enough for supporting this gathering. and I’m grateful for the opportunity to attend.
Here are some Twitter highlights from Day 1 (Wednesday, April 10). I selected these (I hesitate to say I “curated”) somewhat randomly. I encourage readers to check out the #SWDE2019 hashtag and look at all the impressions on Twitter. Like I noted earlier, conference organizers can help facilitate the sharing of conference materials. (Virtual, asynchronous access to conference content would be the standard I’d like to see, but social media facilitates what we can do now.)
KEYNOTE HIGHLIGHTS
More to come from Day 1….
Social Work Distance Education Conference 2019 #SWDE2019 Pre-Conference Post
This is my third year attempting to capture at least a small part of the #SWDE2019 conference in a series of blog posts. I don’t think I will ever crack how to do this “right”, but this year I’m doing a few different things:
- On this blog, I’ll post Twitter highlights and a few extra comments.
- Over at MacroSW.com, I’ll post on any Macro-related stuff that I’ll encounter at this conference.
- If you are a MacroSW Patreon member, I’ll post a few pictures from the conference location and some additional comments.
As always, thank you to Our Lady of the Lake University for making this conference a success.
Travel Social Work: #MacroSW Twitter Chat for 4/4/19 at 9:00 p.m. Eastern
Just a quick reminder that I”ll be moderating tonight’s #MacroSW chat.
Public Transit and Macro Social Work: A Case Study – #MacroSW Chat Feb. 21, 2019
Here’s this week’s preview of our next #MacrosW chat.
Stephen Cummings 