Election Results : A Crisis or an Opportunity?

We do not need President-elect Trump to build a wall, we have already built one between us. It seems the more outrageous the story the farther its reach on social media. Americans are polarized now more than ever. People cannot keep up with the social advances a staggering rate of change in technological advances offers. Our social/emotional conditioning has not progressed to fully understand the implications of social media on relationships, the economy, and health, let alone the political arena.
 
Listening to the results of the election funnel through across America profoundly impacted each side of the political process. Nothing could prepare us for these shocking results. Despair and futility surface after the shock has worn off for some, while others celebrate change. How do we move through this time without creating enemies of our neighbors, coworkers, friends, and family?

Pew Research reported 44% of Americans get their news from Facebook. When analyzed, 38% of Republican and 19% of Democratic news feeds are reporting misleading or out right false news. This reporting helped to shape the outcome of this election. False news, like it or not, is shaping our country.

Reformation is the outcome of crisis in our midst. I offer an opportunity to be constructive in an atmosphere set up to be destructive. This may very well be a critical turning point in American history. No matter who you support, which side do you stand on...will you reconstruct the country in a positive or negative frame?

Steps to make our country great again using technology and our critical thinking in social media:


1. Keep your feed balanced with both Democratic and Republican friends. 

I know, this is a difficult ask. The reason for this is to understand what information the other side is being fed in their data streams. If your feed only supports your ideology, both sides are in danger of taking the blue pill of ignorance.

2. Detect and alert about false news.

Phony news falls into three categories, click-bate, satire, and fake. Click-bate has a morsel of truth, but then adds outrageous information so you will click on it and make them money. Fake sites are similar except they offer completely false headlines tailored to draw you into believing and forwarding the information to, once again, make more money. These two sites market to the gullible, don't be gullible! Start thinking of clicking as income. Where do you want to focus your money?  If we stop forwarding these sites then their income will cease. Satire sites make fun of real issues, but some may take it seriously. Reading someones comments to these sites will alert you to if the joke is understood or their is belief in the story.

Visit this site, Fake News Sites,  monthly and print it out or place it in a document you can refer to while reading social media. If you find a feed on your friends social media account, don't click on it but put a picture in the comments.

If you know the information to be inaccurate from the picture you can offer Snopes.com or any evidence based site (.edu or .gov) as a fact checker. Well known news sites are trickier to identify. We would all like to believe that the New York Times or Fox News is always accurate. Look up their statistics on delivering accurate news. Some news programs or newspapers have a high falsehood rate. Learn to discern the difference.


3. Engage in critical thinking about news feeds. 

Ask yourself these questions...

     a. Does it sound too good to be true?
     b. Are you reading the article from an all good or all bad
         viewpoint?
     c. What is the source? Do they support their statistics from valid data?
     d. Could my bias about this information support the claim?
     e. Is the language of the information inflammatory to a group of people (ethnic background,
         income level, sexual orientation, disability, gender, etc.)
     f. What do the qualified experts/scientists say?
     g. Is there video directly from the person which supports the claim?
     h. If you want to believe the claim regardless of what the experts say, why?

Truth starts with a question. Asking questions is the foundation of our democratic system. If you are challenged on a topic, rejoice! Not only does asking questions offer more knowledge, it increases our embrace of the democratic process. When we stop asking questions and blatantly accept all the information given to us we become a nation headed toward communism. Remember, Communists are not allowed to ask questions...don't give up your rights fought for by countless human lives.Ask questions...lots of questions...







     

Attention Field Supervisors and Social Work Students: Making the most out of your field experience learning plan

           Each semester I work with my interns on their learning plan. Most of my interns are digital natives. I am a digital immigrant. Technology was not even available to me in social work practice until the nineties.  I find it interesting to observe how digital natives relate technology to their practice. These natives often do not understand how to connect digital opportunities with their client populations beyond Internet Searches.

Here I offer some digital possibilities for students to integrate theory with practice in their field settings.  Each one should be discussed with the field supervisor or in the field class. If you have practice with any of them please let me know your experience.

CSWE Field Competency	Learning Opportunities/Tasks
Identify as a professional social worker and conduct oneself accordingly.	·     Create a LinkedIn account ·     Join social work groups on LinkedIn relating to your social work population and the profession ·     Keep an online journal of your experiences each week and share with supervisor, examples are Penzu or Day One ·     Create a blog between you and your supervisor to track resources for your client population, ask questions, or share tools, be sure to make the blog private ·     Curate topics on Scoop.It or Triberr about social work interests ·     Google podcasts, pictures, and videos of various social work events/training to understand professional standards for communication, dress and behavior ·     Join social work blogs and magazines online, use Bundlepost to keep up with them ·     Identify national, regional, and local conferences within your education needs
Apply social work ethical principles to guide professional practice.	·     Join social work groups on LinkedIn relating to social work ethics ·     Read the online ethical standard NASW creates in your practice area and the technology standards ·     Research topics in the Journal of Social Work Values and Ethics ·     Use a search engine to explore ethical dilemmas in social work practices and journal about how you would have responded to share with your supervisor ·     Research an ethical decision making process online and relate it to the agency or population served ·    Evaluate your technology practices for ethical applications and guidelines in social media and communication usage.
Apply critical thinking to inform and communicate professional judgments.	·     Review Bloom’s Digital Taxonomy to integrate technology into problem solving ·     Search for similar programs online to compare their research based strategies to your placement ·     Using Google Images, identify visual models for assessment, prevention, intervention, and evaluation of your field population ·      Search Ted for inspirational videos about agency or client interests ·     Place communication with clients, community or other agencies on GoogleDocs for review by other social workers ·     Video tape yourself addressing differences in practice, problem solving conflicts or working with difficult clients (give friends a script as to how you want them to behave)
Engage diversity and difference in practice.	·     Interpret client data collected by agency against community data for any discrimination ·     Identify three issues with diversity and culture you have had with client populations, then develop a survey on Surveymonkey.com explaining each issue and asking for other professionals, within the organization, viewpoint ·     Develop a list of links relevant to understanding cultures served by your organization ·     Videotape different cultural segments at a protest to understand their point of view on the matter  ·   Identify microaggressions online and discuss how they may impact your client population.
Advance human rights and social and economic justice.	·     Start a campaign on Causes.com or another charity site ·     Cultivate an advocacy blog ·     Join advocacy lists for your causes online ·     Find your local and federal representatives online and write a letter in support or against legislation affecting a population of interest ·     Make a viral video on a social or economic justice issue to post on YouTube ·     Create a Facebook page or Pinterest for your issue ·     Keep a political log of issues affecting your population online, share it on social media
Engage in research-informed practice and practice-informed research.	·     Research charities on charitynavigator.org to see where your organization fits ·     Find which EIPs your organization uses and how they research their programs, then use your school database to research alternative approaches to affect change ·     Discover outcomes at your agency and compare with other agencies ·     Pinpoint and review grant applications online for EIP needs ·     View information on research through Storify or create your own Storify
Apply knowledge of human behavior and the social environment.	·     Identify and assess websites which will empower your client population ·     Generate a list of android and apple applications for use with your population ·     Create a systems view of how the digital divide affects your population ·     Design an online class for clients or staff at Rcampus or MyiCourse, offer the course at your agency or within the community ·     Model a technology ecomap of a client system ·     Develop a method to empower clients usage of technology to advance their problem solving and opportunity
Engage in policy practice to advance social and economic well-being and to deliver effective social work services.	·     Identify appropriate grants and foundations online for use by your agency ·     Find the advocacy group for your population and research policies the group works toward changing ·     Host a twitter debate about policy relevant to your setting, market to appropriate stakeholders ·     Recognize and create an agency policy on GoogleDocs and open it for feedback
Respond to contexts that shape practice.	·     Analyze and compare rural and urban digital solutions to the social issue addressed, evaluate problems ·     Videotape interviews with community stakeholders for upload to agency website ·     Evaluate digital tools and technology systems at your agency, present to supervisor, director, or board ·     Curate relevant technology changes applicable to your agency with Curata
Engage, assess, intervene, and evaluate with individuals, families, groups, organizations, and communities	·     Use a GoPro, with informed consent, to tape a segment of the day you are most engaged with your client population ·     Complete technology assessments with clients ·     Identify and intervene with appropriate technology in your client setting ·     Develop a plan for efficiently using the agency’s electronic records system ·     Assess social media usage at your agency and create a social engagement strategy for your placement

Revised 11/27/13

Community Action Groups in the Cloud

The template below is set up to create knowledge-based community groups in your area through Google’s cloud technology. Everyone in the group may have access to communicate and brainstorm information for projects.  Training may be required on how to use the site for full development of projects. There would need to be options for Internet access if group members do not have computers or Internet availability. Addresses of Internet cafes, local universities with public access, or libraries, would give alternatives to these members.  People with technological access could pair up with others who have limited access.  In these ways the community groups can support all members of the community.

A 'How to' Guide (Template):

https://sites.google.com/site/organizingcommunityaction/

Find the Original Research here:

http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1752480