Advances in human services technology occur worldwide, and the Spanish speaking community, with the third highest population in the world, is no exception. Special mention must be made of the research and intervention in cyberpsychology that two labs, one located in Spain and the other one in Mexico, have developed in recent years: the Cyberpsychology Lab (UNAM, Mexico), and the…
Category: husITa board blogger
husITa and sustainability
Sustainability is a difficult term to define. Wikipedia states sustainability should be viewed as humanity’s target goal of human-ecosystem equilibrium (homeostasis), that is, satisfying present needs does not threaten meeting future needs. Today, most organizations claim the popular goal of sustainability. For example, Starbucks is eliminating an estimated 1 billion plastic straws per year worldwide. The only problem is that…
Harnessing social media for social work research and scholarship
The blog post was written by Laurel Hitchcock (University of Alabama, Birmingham) and Melanie Sage (University at Buffalo). In it we describe our visit with the College of Social Work at the Ohio State University in August 2017, where we talked about how social work faculty can harness technology for their social work scholarship. We also interviewed two of our OSU Social Work…
Gerontechnology: Great potential, but limited adoption in Hong Kong
This blog post by Wong Yu-Cheung (husITa board member, and Associate Professor in social work at the Chinese University of Hong Kong) explores the opportunities and constraints influencing the adoption of geron-technology in Hong Kong.
Professionalism, social work and the connected age
[Image credit: Marco Verch] This blog post by Amanda Taylor (husITa board member, and Senior Lecturer in social work at the University of Central Lancashire) outlines Amanda’s digital journey and why it is that she is committed to finding ways for social work in England to engage more fully with the digital shift.
Technology and aging
This blog post by Ann Wilder (husITa board member, and Assistant Professor at Stephen F. Austin State University School of Social Work) describes one of Ann’s research interests: technology and older people. Most everyone knows that we are living in a world that is rapidly aging. Sociologists refer to this as the grey or silver tsunami, beginning in 2011 in the…
Reflecting on husITa16
As many readers will be aware husITa16 – the 10th international conference of husITa – was held in Seoul, Korea as part of the Joint World Conference on Social Work, Education and Social Development. Over 2,500 delegates from over 80 countries worldwide attended the event. This is the third occasion in which husITa have coordinated the technology subtheme inside the world conference with previous…
mSakhi and Swasthya Slate: User friendly digital communication tools for community health workers.
It is a well-known fact that the health of a person depends on where he/she lives. Access to health care services for poor individuals living in disadvantaged communities is a global problem spanning both developing and developed nations. Be it the slums of Nairobi, the densely populated low income communities of East Los Angeles or the remote tribal villages of…
Smartphones and parenting
Yu-cheung Wong from the Chinese University of Hong Kong introduces the paper he will be discussing at husITa16. The rise of the permanently connected smartphone has made parental supervision of children’s Internet use almost impossible. In Hong Kong, a city where ICT infrastructure is well-developed and smartphone use very affordable, almost all (98%) school children aged 14-17 have a smartphone. Ownership among…
Nextdoor: A new type of community building tool needing research.
Community organizing is typically taught in human service programs, especially in social work courses. Social work in the US is rooted in the work of Jane Addams who, in the late 1800s, organized and served a neighborhood community in Chicago. Google “Jane Adams Hull House Chicago maps” to see some of the geographic maps of the neighborhoods she served. Today, with information technology’s embrace of…