Neil Ballantyne

Research enquiry into the history of social work and social welfare is a vital and ongoing scholarly activity, underpinning our understanding of the past, and illuminating present day practice and policy. 'Memory institutions' like libraries and museums have a key role to play in preserving, and providing researchers with access to, original cultural heritage material

Social work and social welfare services in the developed world have a rich, if relatively recent, history with origins in the social upheavals associated with rapid industrialization and urbanization during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. There is a regular flow of scholarly work analysing historical trends in the policies and practices of social welfare agencies.

Learning objects are bite-sized digital learning resources designed to tackle the e-learning adoption problem by virtue of their scale, adaptability, and interoperability. The learning object approach advocates the creation of small e-learning resources rather than whole courses: resources that can be mixed and matched; used in a traditional or online learning environment; and adapted for reuse in other discipline areas and in other countries.

An article in two parts exploring the possible uses of web 2.0 technologies to support the informal learning of social work and social care workers.