An Introduction: Reimagining Social Work Education for the Digital Age

ABSTRACT

Despite the recent publication of a number of articles, along with current presentations at professional conferences, and a scholarly text all on the topic of distance learning and online social work education, many believe that the subject has not received the level of recognition among academics in our profession that it needs and deserves. This Introduction to a special double issue of a prominent peer-reviewed journal serves to welcome the reader to the contents of the seventeen articles that follow, and to provide both an overview and conceptual framework for the special issue as a whole. Underscoring both the opportunities and quandaries, support and resistance, most of the authors would appear to conclude that social work educators must rapidly become more agile in embracing the unique opportunities presented by the technology that we now have at hand.

KEYWORDS:

• Online social work education
• distance learning
• technology in social work education
• community of inquiry framework
• blended learning models

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.