Saturday, October 27, 2007

Online Midwifery Meetings


Here are two opportunities to attend online midwifery meetings using Elluminate, which is an online conference program. I will be your host along with Carolyn McIntosh.

New Zealand Midwifery

The first meeting is on Wednesday 21st November at 10am New Zealand time (London Tuesday 20th 9pm UCT/GMT). Check here to see the time where you live - Time zone

http://elluminate.tekotago.ac.nz:80/join_meeting.html?meetingId=1193473498671

This meeting is open to anyone who is interested to learn about midwifery and the maternity services in New Zealand. The format will be a 10 minute presentation followed by an opportunity for questions and discussion.

Postgraduate Midwifery Research

This meeting is being held on Thursday 29th November at 10pm New Zealand time (London Thursday 29th 9am UCT/GMT). Check here to see the time where you live - Time Zone.

http://elluminate.tekotago.ac.nz:80/join_meeting.html?meetingId=1193474325250

This meeting is open to anyone interested in midwifery research, especially postgraduate midwifery research students and their supervisors. Format for this meeting will be announced. This is an opportunity for researchers, especially postgraduate midwifery students to network and share information about their research. This particularly aimed at midwives who are studying/researching in an isolated context.

Instructions

Tools that you require:

Internet connection
Headphones if in room with other users
Microphone, if you wish to speak. Otherwise, you can communicate with instant text "chat"
Web browser such as Firefox, Internet Explorer or Netscape.

Click on the URLs above and follow instructions. It is strongly suggested that you get ready a few days ahead of the meeting to make sure your computer hardware, network and firewall policies allows the software download and operation. Firewall and administrative access privileges are the two main reasons new users have problems. This is often problematic if you are using an institution computer. Before you can access the meeting, you will need to download software called 'Java Webstart'.

At the time of the meeting, I would recommend that you log on at least 10-15 minutes early so you become familiar with things like use of the microphone and set your volume and mic controls.

You do not need a user name or password

The meetings are free.

Contact me

Elluminate provides the information you require about using the software which should answer all your questions. However, please feel free to contact me if you have any further questions about the meetings or how to log onto the Elluminate site. I am also often available on Skype. You can find me using my user name:
sarah.m.stewart or email: sarahstewart07@gmail.com .

These meetings will be recorded and made available on this blog after the meetings.

I hope midwives will take this opportunity for international networking and exchange of information. I look forward to meeting you all.

Here are some more Q&A

7 comments:

David McQuillan said...

That's a very comprehensive invitation - thanks Sarah. I'm going to tag as a model for my future invitations to elluminate.

Sarah Stewart said...

Thanks for that, David. Was there anything I forgot? Do you think a complete newbie would be able to get herself/himself into the session from this info? What would you add?

I am rather nervous about it. I hope people see the benefits and a few midwives join us. I'll keep the 'online communities' group informed as to our progress.

Carolyn said...

Great work Sarah. I have put a link in my blog http://mymidiblog.blogspot.com/2007/10/online-elluminate-meeting.html

I might try to do a wee video about getting into Elluminate if I can, that might be useful. I think this is really clear and hopefully not too scary for people. I would be fantastic to get together in this way with other midwives.

Sarah Stewart said...

From Leigh Blackall:

Good stuff Sarah,

Stay steady and consistent. Don't be let down if at first people don't come. I think the way you have presented this invite though is excellent. Direct and to the point, no fuss, be there or be square. I like it. Don't forget to send a reminder out on the day. I often use Skype and Gtalk to send instant message invites 10 minutes before the session starts.

See you there.

Thank you, Leigh, for your comment. As is my wont, I have got very excited about this and the potential for national and international collaboration. But I am also very realistic, and will be pleased if I can get a small group together. I really like what Michelle Martin calls her 'personal learning experiment' http://michelemartin.typepad.com/thebambooprojectblog/2007/09/personal-learni.html

This is my PLE.

Sarah Stewart said...

From my conversation with David McQuillan on Skype:
I think what you had looked pretty good. Are you planning on spending some time running through mike checks, etc. at the start of the meeting?
[9:57:58 a.m.] David McQuillan says: if you're not, you could add some instructions about checking mike, etc before the meeting start time. There's a good wizard for this stuff on the elluminate website. Can't remember the URL, but you could probably find it pretty easily. If you can't, let me know & I could have a look for it (or Leigh knows what it is).

Thank you, David. I have added a link to the Elluminate support pages about how to check mic levels and how to check one has downloaded the Java software properly.

Sarah Stewart said...

Hello Carolyn, thanks for the linking and your offer to do a video-I think its a great idea. I must admit I have not checked to see if there are any slides or videos. So if there isn't one, it would be great to develop one.

Anonymous said...

Wonderful! Hopefully I will be there for the first session.