These categories converge together in many ways, sometimes quite unpredictably. Web-based courses, for example, combine distance education with electronically mediated communication and information access. Moreover, the pace of innovation and the merging and blending of technologies with traditional instruction is likely to increase. These portend major mission, education, practice and resource issues in our future. The committee supports the fundamental value that technology is to promote excellence in social work education and practice.
Technology is thus a means to teach, to conduct research, to communicate, and to work.
It is not an end in itself. The committee views itself as supportive of technologies and an advocate for them, but within the greater need of excellence in social work education and the empowerment of practice. In brief, understanding what various technologies actually produce is more important than paying attention to how they work. Exploration and support of emerging technologies. Application of technologies to support the Council's procedures and routines.