A great day!I have just had a great Web 2.0 day!
OpenPD seminar
It started about 9am when I saw a Twitter message from Sue Waters - I was still lounging about in bed. She had sent out an invitation to join an open access seminar facilitated by the OpenPD team. OpenPD is a free open access program that aims to educate teachers and anyone interested in the use of Web 2.0 tools such as blogs and wikis.
I joined in because I wanted to know more about OpenPD and because they were using UStream as their web conference program, which is a technology I want to look at in more detail. It was great fun to try out a new technology and 'meet' people from countries like USA, South Africa, UK and Australia who are learning about blogging. Made me realize how much I have learned in the last few months. I think I was able to contribute a few helpful ideas. The tip I picked up was to put headings in a post, which will make reading it a lot easier.
Online seminars wiki
I spent the rest of the morning thinking about the program of online professional development seminars that I am planning for midwives and health professionals. These seminars will be free, open access seminars, headed by key midwives and researchers in Australasia. They will follow a similar format introduced to me by Leigh Blackall, using a 10 minute formal 'lecture' followed by discussion and questions. The plan is to replicate the model of free professional development seminars provided by MIDIRS in the UK, which will be better suited, time wise, to the southern hemisphere. I threw around a few ideas with my best mate who lives in Sydney, Australia using Skype.
The result of my thoughts and Skype discussion has led to me starting a wiki. The wiki will act as a tool for developing the program and providing information for people who want to attend the seminars or be a presenter.
Digital literacy meeting
The afternoon was spent at a meeting about digital literacy where I work at Otago Polytechnic. The meeting was attended by staff from all over the Polytechnic who are working to incorporate Web 2.0, flexible delivery and social networking into their programs.
It was hugely exciting to see what others are doing in a diversity of programs from cooking to art and vet nursing. The outcome of the meeting was that we all agreed on the value of institutional collaboration, 'globalising' our digital literacy resources instead of us reinventing the wheel over and over. It feels very positive to part of this institutional movement and collaboration.
Image: 'ekuverikamakee, gadha fadha baareh'
www.flickr.com/photos/49512158@N00/1638001945
12 comments:
I can't believe I hadn't shared the headings tip with you before I feel like a bad mentor :(.
Interesting both you and Cathy have added headings to your posts. I use Heading 3 because it works well on my blog.
Note I don't use a heading directly under my title :) because this is where I put the sentence or paragraph that I'm trying to grab attention with. But excellent use of Headings and the whole PD in the morning I hope inspired you for the rest of the day.
Thank you, bad mentor, for your latest suggestion!
My goodness, woman, you have become a web2.0 goddess!
The question is though, Nancy, what should I have been doing like...talking to my husband...feeding my son...getting motivated to re-tackle my PhD!
my question is, is this better than your PHD?
The seminar was great hey! It IS finally starting to feel like a movement, and one truly from the staff rather than the usual top down. It will be interesting to see where it leads!
Let me know if you need any help with the events you are organising. But as Nancy says ;) you're more than capable now.. you'll be teaching your mentor soon!
Pity you're still not native to MediaWiki though.. no worries, the license is there.. I'll copy paste some day so you can be seen more clearly in the movement :)
This is much more fun (and meaningful) than my phd!
I have to say, Leigh, that I thought long and hard about where I was going to start my open access PD wiki - wikispaces or wikiedeucator? I have used both and I am getting more familiar with wikieducator now.
But I felt in the long run that midwives (who are not particularly digitally literate) would find wikispaces easier to deal with than wikieducator. This is why I'm have chosen to use that platform for my work with midwives.
I still plan to use wikieducator for education work eg the paper I co-wrote about open access midwifery education. I just think that wikieducator is intimidating to people who have few computer/web 2.0 skills. Having just joined a Wetpaint wiki, I think that is even more user friendly for newbies.
thanks for your feedback and support, Leigh. I couldn't do it without you and people like Sue Waters, Michele Martin and Nancy White.
Yes I don't know how I missed the heading suggestions in the tip guide :).
The good news Nancy is we learn so much off Sarah -- I wish I had her marvelous sense of humor never fails to crack me up. Those gloves still have me laughing.
I should have also mentioned that Leigh's 10 minute lecture series was brilliant.
Sorry Leigh but I have to agree with Sarah on the whole wiki debate -- wikispaces is by far the easier option for those less digitally literate.
I've totally enjoyed connecting with you Sarah and am grateful for all the support you give me. We have to thank Leigh for connecting us all together :). A big thanks Leigh from all of us.
hey sarah - re PhD comment - have you thought - this is all creating a whole new PhD opportunity for you - sounds like there was some issue with your last project? Is what you are doing here now going to be able to bend itself towards your PhD interest and fuel your desire to be involved in online networking and education for midwives? They need not be mutually exclusive or pitched against each other maybe?
Just a thought?
Rae
Would love to , Rae, but too far down the road with my mentoring project, I'm afraid.
Sarah, I'm glad you mentioned the tip on headings. I've noticed them in other top bloggers posts before, but for some reason hadn't thought of incorporating them into my own posts. I used them in my latest post and they also helped me to organize my thoughts better--always a difficult thing to to ;)
I agree Claire, its probably one of the best blogging tips I have picked up lately.
Rae: been thinking a lot about what you have said and whilst I cannot completely go with your idea for the reasons I have already said, it has reinforced my desire to continue with my e-mentoring rather than something else. So that has inspired me to do something constructive about my situation and not be 'pushed' into something I do not want to do. This decision may make my life a lot more difficult in the long run but it is one that I am comfortable with. Thanks for that.
Post a Comment