A change of scene

I'm going to take the plunge and change the template of this blog because it's looked like this a while and I'm bored with it. Plus, the poll I ran the other week agreed that it was time for change.

So I am needing a few recommendations:

• I want a template that allows me to have tabs at the top of the page, like Leigh does with his blog.
  
• I only want two columns
• I would like a template that allows me to utilize the whole screen, like my current blog.
• The whole process of changing templates has to be fairly easy because I have no experience or understanding of html.

And finally, the template must not be too fussy - I'm not into flowers, love hearts or any other such things - plain and simple, that's me!

So if you have any suggestions, please let me know.


Image: 'Time For Change' David Reece
www.flickr.com/photos/8211018@N03/2328879637

Yet more fun with cartoons and Pixton

Here's another fun cartoon program from Pixton that can enhance teaching resources.

The safety of birth

A number of presentations that were given at the 'Safety of birth' conference in October have been made available in pdf form. Go to the conference web site for topics that range from evidence about place of birth to information about management of emergencies.

Playing with ToonDoo

Instead of doing something really useful like updating my ePortfolio or cutting the lawn, I've been playing with ToonDoo which is a fabulous program for making cartoons. It's great fun to use, both as a serious teaching aid or activity for the kids.

I'm just scratching my head to think how I would use it in a teaching session for student midwives. Any ideas?

by SarahStewart | Make your own at www.toondoo.com

Reflections on the first year of online seminars for midwives

As we rapidly approach the end of 2008, I thought it would be a good time to reflect back on the program of free online seminars I have been offering midwives this year.

What inspired the program
The idea came about as a response to the free online seminars that MIDIRS offers in the UK. The problem for us in the southern hemisphere is that the time zones never match, although you can access the seminar recordings at any time. So I thought it would be good to offer a similar program for us, focusing on midwives in New Zealand and Australia.

I also hoped the program would support the midwives who were not able to physically go to the ICM conference back in May, that was held in Glasgow, especially the midwives in developing countries like Pakistan who could not afford to go. I had hoped that people who presented in Glasgow would replicate their presentations online for the benefit of those of us who could not go to the conference. This hasn't happened, and I think that is because there is still a lack of understanding and interest in online education and professional development. I also wonder if there is a concern about the 'academic value' of online presentations compared to face-to-face conferences - do online presentations have the same credibility and gain the same academic 'brownie points' as face-to-face presentations? What do you think?

Technology
I decided to use Elluminate as I have access to it via my employer, Otago Polytechnic. However, the program is my own individual responsibility, and not necessarily endorsed by the Otago Polytechnic School of Midwifery.

There may come a time when I utilise a different conferencing platform such as WiZiQ or DimDim, but for the time being I'll stick with Elluminate because it can be used fairly easily by people with dial-up Internet access. I am looking for feedback on WiZiQ - have you used it and if so, how did you find it?

Speakers
The speakers were mostly colleagues whose arms I was able to twist. I deliberately chose more clinically focused subjects because experience has shown me that this is what interests midwives, as opposed to more theoretical subjects. I found during the year that there was a lot of interest in being a speaker, but it was difficult to pin people down to actually doing it.

So if you'd like to present a session next year, please let me know. You can present a specific clinical topic, or a more general topic that will not only be of interest to midwives, but also women and health consumers interested in pregnancy and childbirth.

Seminars
We had a total of five seminars all together looking at subjects ranging from midwifery in Pakistan to breastfeeding. I have recorded all the meetings and archived them on the wiki I have been using to manage the program. The last two seminars planned for October and November had to be canceled for various reasons.

Success?
The first session was attended by one person other than immediate colleagues. And the final session was attended by 16 people. This does not sound like a large audience, but it has been very encouraging to see a steady growth of numbers. I was also very interested to see that a good number of non-midwives have attended. I love the idea of joint sessions between midwives and health consumers. To me, this is real partnership, and I believe this will lead to collaborations and synergies that may not otherwise happen. I have had attendees from New Zealand, Canada, UK, Pakistan and Australia. I have also had a number of private emails from people, mostly health consumers, wanting to go on a 'mailing list' and be notified about future presentations.

Wiki
I have developed a wiki to support this program with the aim that people could use it for information and to volunteer their services. But the impression I have receieved is that people do not really understand how a wiki works. In particular, the speakers have not understood that they can add their own information. This has not been a problem because I have been able to do it for them. But my vision that the wiki will be a collecting point for speakers to volunteer their services, and reduce my work load has not been realized.

Changes for next year

• Formally evaluate each session so I have concrete data which can be written up and published.
  
• Need to work out a way of keeping track of how many people access the recordings.
• Make the recordings into an audio podcast.
  
• Be a lot more organized about how I advertise the sessions. I have regular places I use to advertise such as the midwifery research discussion list and various Facebook groups. But I am not very consistent. And I have had a number of people ask to be notified about sessions. So I think I need to make a simple database with email addresses and contact details which will ensure that everyone who is interested in the sessions gets notified on a regular basis.
  
• Have a back up plan if speakers are unable to attend. But at the same time, I think I have to emphasize that a commitment to being a speaker is the same as committing to present at a face-to-face conference. It is very difficult to disseminate the news that a session has been canceled because I have no idea how far afield my advertising has gone.
  
• Work on helping people to understand how they can use the wiki.

Future plans
I am very pleased with how this 'experiment' has gone this year, and look forward to developing a full program for 2009. I believe there is a huge need for online synchronous events to happen, both in midwifery and health generally. And I think we shouldn't be afraid to open up to health consumers as well as other health professionals. For example, I would dearly like to replicate the very positive experience I had at the aged and community care conference I attended last week in an online environment.

My big plan for next year? Well, I would like to organize a 24 hour online event for midwives and health professionals so that whatever time zone you are in, you will have the opportunity to attend at least one event. So if you have any ideas, or would like to work with me to organize this, please let me know.

My nominations for the 2008 Edublog Awards

It's time to make nominations for the 2008 Edublog Awards. These awards are made to educators who use blogs and technology in their teaching practice. Last year I hadn't been blogging long enough to have a sense of who or what was what. But this year, I would like to make the following nominations:

Best individual blog
Leigh Blackall: Learn Online
I don't always understand what Leigh says or agree with it, but he regularly challenges and stretches me to see outside and beyond my boundaries.

Best group blog
Sarah, Angela and others: Salford University Occupational Therapy Education Blog
These occupational therapist educators are fairly new to blogging and have just set up an online Masters' degree in occupational therapy. They are blazing the trial in the use of technology in health education, and have been very supportive of me in my personal efforts.

Best new blog
Carolyn McIntosh: Fled: Flexible learning education design
In this blog, Carolyn discusses issues in relation to midwifery education.

Best resource sharing blog
Sue Waters: Mobile Technology in TAFE
Sue is always so incredibly generous in giving her time, being supportive and sharing her resources.

Most influential blog post
Michele Martin: Becoming a More Reflective Individual Practitioner
This post is sums up what reflective practice is all about. I use it extensively as a resource for students.

Best teacher blog
Alan Cann: Science of the Invisible
I love the way that Alan write things that are always of interest or relevance to my situation, and the way he honestly shares his experiences as a teacher in a way that I learn from.

Best educational tech support blog
Rudd Lucier: The Clever Sheep
I regularly get ideas from Rodd on how I can use technology in my teaching and learning.

Best elearning / corporate education blog
Tony Karrer: eLearning Technology
Am really enjoying his current work on work place literacy and learning.

Best educational wiki
Sue Waters, Silvia Tolisano, Michele Martin and Kim Cofino: 31 Day Comment Challenge
A great learning activity that was started in May this year.

Best educational use of a virtual world
Has to be Jo Kay: Jokaydia.com

Web 2.0, social networking and practice

I have just got back from Surfer's Paradise where I attended the 2008 Community Care Conference sponsored by Aged Care Queensland.

Presentation
The presentation I gave was about how social networking could be used as a means to support staff in the workplace, which will hopefully have a flow-on effect in terms of improving recruitment and retention.

How it went
I have to say I was extremely nervous when I stepped up on the stage because it was the biggest audience I have ever talked to (160 people). Following the last conference presentation I gave, I made sure that I had practiced thoroughly beforehand, but that did not stop me feeling like I had dried up, and forgetting half the things I wanted to say. I had notes with me, but forgot to look at them to remind myself what I was going to say. At the same time, I think it is really important not to rely on notes because that makes it so much harder to connect with the audience, as well as very boring for the audience to listen to.

Using humor
Inadvertently, I made the audience laugh half way through the talk and that helped me relax, and then I felt things went much better. I do deliberately try to crack a few jokes right at the beginning of a talk as a strategy for warming the audience and calming my nerves, but I was too nervous to even do that this time. So I am extremely grateful for the audience's sense of humor which I feel rescued me - what made them laugh was a comment I made about the high cost of Internet access in the hotel.

Conclusion
I think it went alright. I didn't have any questions from the audience, which always worries me - I like questions because it means that the audience is thinking about what you say. Does a lack of questions after a presentation mean that the audience didn't like what you said, or does it mean that they are still mulling things over?

Having said that, I'm probably being much too hard on myself. I did have half a dozen people talk to me after wards and they were very complementary, with several people saying I had a very nice presentation style. They were mostly interested in the actual tools I talked about so now I am wondering if I should have spent more time talking about the tools and demonstrating them, as opposed to the more theoretical aspects of social networking.

Needless to say, it was a wonderful (if nerve racking) experience which will only help me consolidate my presentation skills. So a big 'thank you' to Aged Care Queensland for their invitation and sponsorship of my trip.

Web 2.0 & social networking for supporting practice

View SlideShare presentation or Upload your own. (tags: healthprofessional agedcare)

http://www.slideshare.net/sarahs/web-20-social-networking-for-supproting-practice-presentation

Loving Surfer's Paradise

I've just got back from three days in Surfer's Paradise, Australia, attending a conference organized by Aged Care Queensland for community care organizations. The main reason for me being there was because I was asked to present a talk on how web 2.0 and social networking can be used in practice - more on that in another post.

Conference themes
I had a wonderful time as everyone was very warm and welcoming. It just emphasized that whilst I am a midwife and the people I met were mainly working in the aged care sector, as health and social workers we have a lot in common.

One of the main themes of the conference was how we can support staff in a way that will improve recruitment and retention, which is an issue in many professions. We discussed how we can attract and support young people into health professions, with one new initiative being the Joeys - Baby Boomers Group which has been convened on Facebook by Todd Paterson. I am wondering if we should start a similar initiative for young midwives in New Zealand.

Responding to changing environments
There was a lot of talk about how we can look at alternative ways of providing support, mentoring and education in this day of increasing financial pressures and rapid change. And this is where my discussion of changing attitudes to learning, professional development and communication was of interest. I was really impressed at how open people appeared to be to new ideas, and the recognition that there has to be adaptation to changing conditions in the workplace, and global context.

Cultural competency
One of the sessions that interested me was led by Jenny Bray who talked about cultural competency. Jenny feels that we cannot be culturally competent unless we can transfer our communication skills and 'way of being' across all cultures, as opposed to one specific culture. What was interesting for me was to compare how the talk about culture in Australia was very much focused on the many cultures of migrants to Australia, as opposed to our emphasis in New Zealand on the culture of our indigenous people, the Moari, in New Zealand.

Taking charge of one's destiny
Another theme of interest to me, both on a personal and wider educational level was how people should be empowered to take charge of their own destiny and learning, as opposed to being told what to do. I know that's not rocket science, and hardly new news. But it was good to have it emphasized, and in a different environment and context to the one that I usually sit in.

Micheal Buck's master class on coaching didn't tell me anything I didn't already know. But it did emphasize the power of open questions that guide people to come to their own understanding, decisions and learning (a skill I can always strengthen), as opposed to telling people (students and my own children especially) what to do.

The challenge for me personally that came out of the master class, was that if I want something to happen or I want to change, I have to make it happen, as opposed to waiting for it to happen to me. And that may well mean that I need to think outside the square about my future and where I am heading in my life.

Having fun
So I had great fun, and bought myself an Asus eeepc 1000H lap top, which is a luxury, but will be much easier to travel with. So, thanks to Michael Rees via Twitter, who gave me the tip about where to get a bargain.

I met some fabulous people, did some great networking, and enjoyed hearing about the challenges and triumphs of working in another area in health other than my own. After all, it might be me needing 'aged care' in the years to come.

Being a midwife

I love this reflective poem by Pam. It captures so succinctly what midwives feel at times.

Don`t

by Pam

Don`t mess with me,

I`m tired.

Don`t hug me,

I will cry.

Don`t tell me it will be ok,

I feel it won`t.

Don`t do any more washing,

I can see the ironing pile getting bigger.

Don`t offer me chocolate,

I feel fat.

Don`t ask me to do just one more visit,

I`ve already worked 120hrs.

Don`t shout at me,

I will shout back.

Don`t be patronizing,

I will shed tears.

Don`t frustrate me,

I`m an emotional knot inside.

Don`t call me unnecessarily,

I will put the phone in the toilet!

Midwifery and a Facebook campaign

It looks like midwifery is starting to see the benefits of social networking.

Facebook campaign
I am fascinated to watch a campaign unfold on Facebook called 'Celebrate New Zealand Midwifery'. It's a campaign started by David Small in response to a media campaign being led in Christchurch against midwifery.

Clearly it is gaining momentum and has over 200 members in just a week. And, it has been endorsed by the New Zealand College of Midwives, our professional body.

Skeptical
Up until recently I have been skeptical about the value of Facebook in terms other than entertainment, so it will be very interesting to see how this new development unfolds. I think I have moved from practically ignoring Facebook to starting to see its benefits and potential in midwifery education and practice.

How do you use Facebook? What do you think are its benefits in your life, work and practice?


Image: http://www.flickr.com/photos/92632631@N00/2999485571/

How to cope with blood and gore

My daughter is thinking again about being a midwife. She loves the idea of the communication side of the job and knows she will do a brilliant job of building relationships and supporting women (she is an excellent communicator, even though I say it myself).

But she is concerned about how she'll cope with the 'medical' side of things - how will she cope with the 'blood and gore'?

Any advice from those of you who are midwives, medical practitioners and midwifery students?



Image: 'Chest Burster' Vermin Inc
www.flickr.com/photos/71038389@N00/2182701415

Ina May Gaskin podcast

MIDIRS has made a pod cast of an interview with Ina May Gaskin and made it available on its web site. Ina May Gaskin is a midwifery guru and seen by many midwives and women as a strong advocate of midwifery. Her book 'Spiritual Midwifery' has been a seminal book for thirty odd years and her work at the community The Farm is legendary. So this podcast is really worth checking out.

MIDIRS newsletter
The other things MIDIRS is advertising this week is an article on prolonged pregnancy; news about the latest NICE evidence-based guideline: induction of labour; a free online seminar about complementary therapies and a feature about being a student midwife.

Subscription
If you haven't subscribed to MIDIRS online newsletter, then do so now because it is a great resource for midwifery information and online resources.


Image: 'Wishes away' davebluedevil
www.flickr.com/photos/92089029@N00/138679494

Safe motherhood is more than just maternity

Last free online seminar for 2008.

Tricia Thompson, midwife and Programmes Officer for Asia, will be talking about her work for Caritas, an organization for aid and development in developing countries.

Date
Tuesday 4th November

Time
6.30 pm New Zealand time. For international time, please click here.

Meeting link
http://elluminate.tekotago.ac.nz/join_meeting.html?meetingId=1225656245895

For further information about using Elluminate, please click here.

2009
If you are interested in leading an online seminar in 2009, please feel free to contact me.


Disclaimer: Opinions presented at the seminars are not necessarily those of Otago Polytechnic School of Midwifery.


Image: 'Redhead' chishikilauren
www.flickr.com/photos/82947718@N00/5647076