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In wake of the recent events that have shocked our country it should be noted that the use of information technology will
play an even larger role in the practice of social work.
In the very moments of the alarming events E-mails were
flying via the Internet. Thus, we now know that the use of technology by social service personnel could become lifesaving
as we face a complex and changing work environment.
In the past year and now with added emphasis the Committee on
Technology and Distance education has met several objectives as it moves to accomplish two major themes:
· To reduce
"technology anxiety" among BPD's membership
· To remain on the cutting edge of technology to demonstrate
how technology can be utilized for effective teaching and generalist practice.
To accomplish the goals created by
these themes the committee has undertaken a major commitment to offer a series of workshops at the annual BPD program meeting
that will:
· Demonstrate the integration of technology with each (CSWE) curriculum area.
· Explore a framework
for evaluating social work related educational and practice web-based activities
· Provide individual consultation
for BPD members as a follow-up to conference workshops
· Provide instruction on development and management of listservs,
web sits, NewsGroups, and chat rooms
Given the changing trends in the use of technology the committee has developed
expanded objectives to include:
1. testing techniques related to submission of CSWE Self-Studies via the Internet.
2. coordinating efforts to secure social work discussion groups in each state
3. continuing to publish and
disseminate information about electronic networking for social workers by submitting manuscripts to:
· The Journal
of Baccalaureate Social Work
· BPD Update
· BPD Forum
· The Journal of Teaching Social Work
4. developing
ethical standards for use of electronic data transfer for undergraduate social work education and research
5. developing
a system for voting for BPD membership
6. maintaining the committee web page
7. encouraging the BPD membership
to establish and train social welfare agency staff.
BPD members are encouraged to review the committee's web page
links found on the BPD web site. New information has been added that provides a list of resources that can facilitate faculty
research and classroom instruction in each of the (CSWE) curriculum areas.
Future developments by the committee will
address the issues of distance learning, especially as application applies to evaluating social work related educational and
practice web-based activities.
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