Rebecca J. Hogue

Category: 1 VirtuallyConnecting

  • Tips for socializing on Zoom (or other video conference platforms)

    Tips for socializing on Zoom (or other video conference platforms)

    With this shelter-at-home happening around the world, more and more of us are relying on video conferencing for work, which is making it extra difficult to want to spend additional screen time in order to socialize. Since I’m part of several dispersed communities, and as a result, I have some practice with socializing over video conference platforms.

    Well before Covid-19, I was a fan of the Zoom platform. As a result, I’ll talk about tips as they relate to Zoom – although many of my tips are platform agnostic.

    1 – Keep the size reasonable (4-6 works really well).

    Autumm Caines calls this the Interpersonal Multitudes Barrier (IMB). The idea is that if there are too many people on the conference call, then it isn’t possible to have a casual conversation. If you want a free flowing conversation, you need to stick to the number of people you would talk to at the dinner table, assuming only one person is talking at a time.

    2 – Find a comfortable seat.

    We do our business calls in front of our computer sitting at a desk. Often when people say they are tired of video conferencing all day, such that they don’t want to socialize on the computer, it is because they are visualizing socializing while sitting at their desk. However, if people were visiting your home, you would typically socialize while sitting comfortably in your living room.

    3 – Use your tablet or phone.

    Tablets work better because they have bigger screens. Using your tablet is another way to separate the work you do in front of your computer from socializing. It also makes it a lot easier to sit in a comfortable seat and chat. We have this great stand that we call “dude” that holds our iPads. It makes it so that we can chat hands free while sitting on the couch.

    Dude – Our tablet holder

    4 – Grab a beverage or snack.

    People can be concerned about eating on a conference call, however, that is a business mindset. If you were in-person you would eat a snack or drink a beverage together. This too can be done while enjoying a casual conversation over video.

    5 – Be intentional.

    It is just like hosting a dinner party, you need to invite guests and tell them what time to arrive. It may seem unnatural to need to be intentional about casual conversations, but in the online world it is the only way they will happen. Your social time is just as important as your work time – so block out some time in your calendar and invite some friends to chat.

    6 – Use gallery mode.

    This is specifically for Zoom (one of the features I love). Some people like to call this the Brady Bunch view or Hollywood Squares view. The idea is that the each person gets equal space on the screen. This doesn’t privage the person who is speaking, and allows you to see everyone. When you have a dinner party, you don’t have the speaker stand when speaking – using speaker view has the same feeling. With gallery view it feels a lot more like sitting around a table together (or in the living room together). This also allows you to see visual cues which helps avoid talking over one another.

    7 – Do something fun, be a little silly.

    The trend this weeks seems to be silly hats – asking everyone to make a silly hat from what they have available in their homes. Just like having a themed dinner party, it is handy to have a theme as a way to help start the conversation, but also to help you share a laugh.

    What tips do you have for socializing on a video call?

  • Gettin’ Air

    Gettin’ Air

    A few weeks ago I had the pleasure of having a conversation with Terry Greene for his podcast Gettin’ Air. It was great to spend some time chatting with him about open pedagogy, online teaching, and the Virtually Connecting origin story – from my Point of View.

    You can listen to the session here: https://www.spreaker.com/user/10100518/rebecca-hogue

    Feature image Photo by CoWomen on Unsplash.

  • Paradox of Patient Empowerment and Care

    I find myself looking at all my past experience, and making connections between what I know as an educator, and PhD student, to what I have experienced as a patient with critical/chronic illness. Leading off from Autumm Caines’ post about Virtually Connecting focus groups, I want to chat a little more about the paradox of patient empowerment and care. I watched the first focus group and attended the second and third. It was during the third focus group that I was challenged on using a famous Audre Lorde quote “you cannot dismantle the master’s house with the master’s tools” – that challenge led to an ah-ha moment for me – the paradox of patient empowerment and care.

    When we talk about the need to empower patients, we talk about patients taking an active role in their healthcare. This is a challenge the often very paternalistic healthcare system – where we as patients are suppose to do what we are told. The language often used is that of “compliance”. It goes further to sometimes even blame the patient. We hear things like “the patient failed to respond to this medication”, rather than “the medication failed the patient”. Language matters.

    In one breath, I see patient empowerment as giving patients a larger voice in the healthcare system. I talk about medicine being practiced with patients rather than on patients.

    On a side note, I wonder how much of this is an American view point – where here you often (if you live in a populated area and have the privilege of good health insurance) get to choose who provides your healthcare? This is the land of second and sometimes even third opinions – but it is also the land of shopping for healthcare providers that align with your needs/personality, etc. The choice of provider affects the culture. I do think the empowerment situation is somewhat different in a socialized system, where you don’t have the choices in who you see (at least not to the same extent). In Canada, the gatekeeper is your family medicine physician (primary care physician or PCP). When you need a specialist, you go through your PCP. In the US, at least from my experience, your insurance company plays a much larger role of gatekeeper. Your insurance company determines if your PCP needs to make a referral or if you can self-refer. Your insurance company (and bank account) determine which providers are in-network – and which ones you can afford to see. In many cases, self-referral is what happens. When I was diagnosed with cancer, once I had a confirmed pathology, I could self-refer to any surgeon or oncologist. I didn’t need my PCP to make the referral.

    Where do I see the paradox? I see it in the need for the healthcare system to provide care. When you are in the middle of a health crisis, you need to know that the healthcare system is going to care for you. You need the maternalistic sense that someone(s) has your best interests in mind, and that they will ensure you are cared for. When you are in crisis, you don’t need, nor do you really want empowerment. You need care.

    Going back to the Audre Lorde quote “you cannot dismantle the master’s house with the master’s tools”, the patient empowerment movement isn’t so much about dismantling the tools completely, although it is about dismantling some of the paternalistic tendencies in the system. There are times when we need the use of the master’s tools. We need the expertise of our physicians and other allied health professionals. We rely on them for care. But when we are not in crisis, we also need to know that our voices are heard.

    In online teaching, we talk about the transition of teacher from “sage on the stage” to “guide on the side”. In many ways, this is the transition that empowered patients are looking for in healthcare. They want their physicians to be guides rather than sages. The expertise is desired, but also the recognition that patients carry prior knowledge and expertise. I like to use the phrase “I am an expert in my body”. My medical oncologist is an expert in breast cancer and the pharmaceutical treatments for it, but he is not an expert in my body. I am the one that is living in it.

    Do you see a paradox between patient empowerment and care? How is patient empowerment different in socialized medicine settings? 

  • Growing your PLN

    This summer I’ll be teaching a new course on Leadership of Learning in the Digital Age. I’m designing the course as a combination of leadership skills (emotional intelligence) and digital literacy skills. One key aspect of the course will be to have students work on defining and expanding their personal learning network (PLN). In leadership terminology, the idea here is grow your social capital. From my perspective, I see it as growing the network of people who help me to continue learning.

    One bit of advice I received was to make sure that I modeled the behaviors that I’m teaching. One example of that modeling is this blog, and my personal internet presence. This idea then made me start to conscious think about the things that I do (and have done) to help grow my personal learning network. How do I keep it alive and continue to feed it.

    Currently the one of the most important things I do for my online network is Virtually Connecting (VC). VC has done so much for expanding my personal learning network. I love that I have so many new colleagues and even new friends as a result of what I do at Virtually Connecting. I’m working now at expanding that space into the Engaged Patient (ePatient) space. The transition is not an easy one, but it has been a valuable one for my learning. I also love seeing how Virtually Connecting is helping others.

    Another thing I do is to reach out to people and ask about their research, or ask for a copy of their paper. I use Google Scholar Alerts to find the latest research papers on topics that interest me. When something that comes up that looks interesting but isn’t available through my university library (which is often the case with alerts about papers that haven’t been published yet), I try to see if I can find an email for the author (or if they are on ResearchGate or Academia.edu). If I can find a way to communicate directly with the author, I send them a message introducing myself and asking them a question and for a copy of the paper. This gives me an opportunity to reach out and have a dialogue with scholars who are doing work that I find interesting. It sometimes leads to further conversations. It is also very rewarding when someone answers your email.

    Earlier in my academic career I participated in Connectivist MOOCs. These MOOCs gave me ideas for blog posts, but also gave me a chance to connect with others. Participating in the blogosphere, and linking to other people’s blogs, has done a lot for my PLN.

    Now I think back to something that Michael Berman said to my class, networking is 80% giving and 20% getting. I am now thinking about what I do to give back. Early in my academic career, I monitored #phdchat on Twitter. If I could, I’d answer people’s questions. I also think that blogging helps other people learn. I connect other people’s ideas with what I’m thinking, and that helps both of us. Recently, I’ve done most of my work in mentoring breast cancer patients. It is hugely rewarding to know that I can help someone making their experience just a little less sucky (cause cancer sucks). While I was in treatment, I developed the Should I Blog (http://shouldiblog.org) course. It is something that I hope to update and launch again sometime in the next few years – but right now my time is going towards finishing my PhD and teaching.

    I’m sure there is more. My husband says that I sell myself short when I think that I’m not going at networking or to use dry business leadership terminology – building social capital.

    What do you to build and continually improve your personal learning network? Any tips for my future students who may have very little internet presence at the beginning of the course?

  • What Trump means for academic conferences

    One of my first thoughts when I heard that Trump was elected was that it meant much fewer opportunities to hear diverse voices at international conferences held within the US. I attend a lot of conferences – many of them have international audiences.

    One thing that American’s don’t often realize is just how difficult it can be for someone to get to a conference in the United States. Now people will need to deal with increased hassle for getting visas as well as increased hassles for getting through border security – and increased worries about personal safety. If you think I’m overreacting, note that Turkey has already warned its citizens about travel to the US.

    I think that international organizations will be re-thinking hosting conferences in the US.  I will re-think attending international conferences in the US, even though I live here. If organizations want international representation, they will start hosting more conferences in Europe or Canada. I suppose that is a good thing for Canadians – but really, it is a bad thing for academics as a whole. It means that it is going to be more difficult for people to participate in conference – including US citizens.

    I do think it will also mean more opportunities for Virtually Connecting. More people will need to present virtually and will also want to share in the hallway conversations that Virtually Connecting hosts. But even this makes me a little sad. In part because Virtually Connecting brings people closer together, and with that comes a deeper desire to meet in the same physical space. It is that desire which brought me to the OpenEd conference a few weeks ago. I really wanted the opportunity to share physical space with so many of the people I have met through virtually connecting. I see that there will be less opportunity for this sharing of physical space in the coming years.

    That was only part of my reaction to the Trump election … it is the part I’m willing to talk about openly. As Canadians living in the US, we cannot physically attend protests – however, we can protest with our pocket books. With that in mind, my husband and I have made donations to charities that will need to provide more services, organizations that we believe in, Planned Parenthood and Mexican American Legal Defence and Educational Fund.

    Feature image by Idobi – Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, Link

  • Transcription as deep listening

    By Rebecca J. Hogue, Helen DeWaard, and Britni Brown O’Donnell

    This post was originally published on VirtuallyConnecting.org.

    [Helen] As a Virtually Connecting virtual buddy I’ve had so many great conversations that leave an impression on my thinking. The voices within the Virtually Connecting hangout from the Digital Pedagogy PEI with Audrey Watters and Jesse Stommel left echoes resonating in my thoughts. I felt a strong need to re-listen to honor the voices and listen deeply to the messages shared.

    As an educator I’ve always considered the importance of ensuring everyone can access learning materials in a variety of ways. Universal design for learning is a big consideration for my teaching practice. This includes the provision of an accurate closed-captioned transcript to accompany video. As I began to review the Virtually Connecting session, I realized that creating an accurate transcript could become a mechanism for me to listen deeply and reflect on the ideas shared.

    Out of the flow of conversation, interjections and laughter, the meaning and message began to crystallize and clarify. As I corrected the timing, synched words with speakers and edited the errors made in the automated transcription, I was able to catch nuances and a depth in the dialogue that I missed the first time I experienced the conversation. While the closed-captioning process can be tedious at times, the transcription work for this Virtually Connecting session became an opportunity to enjoy and gain insight from the moments of humour and camaraderie between the onsite and virtual participants. By completing the transcription process I was able to not just hear the words but make sense of the conversation.

    It started as a way for me to review the session and to listen to the conversation in a more controlled and relaxed way (stopping, starting, replaying, fixing text to match the words). It became a purposeful process to pay attention to the message, gain meaning and understanding of the ideas that emerged, and honor the voices of those sharing their thoughts. In the end, the transcription process gave me a reason to spend more time with the individuals involved, get to know them better through their words and actions, and to listen deeply.

    [Rebecca]: When Helen first mentioned to me that she had spent a few hours correcting the YouTube transcription for a Virtually Connecting session, I was inspired. In previous work I was required to find a way to close-caption videos, so I was familiar with the concepts of closed-captioning. I had heard that YouTube provided auto-captions, but the quality of those captions was not adequate for anything being posted on the university’s YouTube channel. We ended up paying for transcription services, but that option isn’t feasible for Virtually Connect. At $1/minute, we just couldn’t afford it.

    In addition to the accessibility aspect, Helen mentioned that the act of going through the YouTube recording at the slower pace, and validating and correcting errors in the closed caption transcript helped her listen more deeply to what was said, I immediately saw the value in it.

    I also had a secondary motivation. If researchers were to use what we were saying in the video they would need a transcript. The transcript would make it a lot easier for researcher to quote the video or paraphrase what was said and to give the right person credit for their words.

    I started with transcription of the ePatient blog video, but discovered that YouTube had not done the first pass auto-transcription. Although YouTube has a pretty cool transcription tool that stops the playback automatically every time you type, this meant that transcription was taking more time than I had. After some investigation I learned that the video was too long (over 90 minutes). I downloaded the video, clipped it into three smaller videos, and re-uploaded them. Almost instantaneously YouTube provided the first pass close captioning.

    While I was waiting for the ePatient blogging clips, I went back to the Virtually Connecting ePatient Launch and cleaned up the closed caption transcript for that video. I as I was doing it, I was reminded of the rich conversation we had during the launch. I found myself taking notes about what we were saying but also hearing what others were say. I found myself really listening. I was reminded of a research article I had read in my first year of my PhD studies (i.e. Bird, 2005).

    In addition to deep listening and providing accessible content and transcripts for research, I also see this process as helpful in my PhD studies. I see the way transcription will help me better see dialogue. I see it how it will help me become a better autoethnographer.

    [Britni]: My first live participation with Virtually Connecting went quickly. It was a whirlwind of conversation, as occurs when there are numerous eager and excited participants, and I found myself getting lost along the way. I didn’t speak much, because I couldn’t process what was being said, and synthesize a reply, as quickly as the conversation was occurring. Afterwards, while reflecting on my participation on Twitter—particularly my reservations in participating again if I couldn’t keep up—Autumm Caines reached out to me and suggested that I use the recorded video as an opportunity; re-watching the conversation at my own pace and then reaching out to participants via Twitter to extend the conversation. She shared that she often used the affordances of a recording to engage in deeper listening and extended processing.

    With renewed confidence, knowing I can catch up when needed and participate in other media, I have continued to engage in live Virtual Connecting sessions. Of particular importance to me have been the Virtually Connecting ePatient (VCePT) conversations—given the intersection between health and academia I have personally experienced. Rebecca has kept me involved in the growing VCePT community, and work. As she was correcting the YouTube generated closed-captions, she reached out to me a few times to clarify what I had said. As we talked through the transcription, I volunteered to take the work Rebecca had already put together and add in speaker changes; however, encountering the transcription wasn’t what I expected. I was unfamiliar with closed-captioned transcriptions and more familiar with a transcript formatted for qualitative research.

    Given one of the key aspirations of VCePT is to help researchers access and use publically available engaged patient data, I felt it was particularly important to provide researchers with a transcript they were familiar with. In a separate document I collapsed the closed-caption transcription, into a transcription delineated by speaker. Then I went to work adding in the minute details, like punctuation and noting expressions, particularly laughter. Along the way I made small corrections in the transcription that made more sense in context, once punctuation was added.

    The transcribing process took Autumm’s suggestion of re-watching a step further. I picked up on strands of thought that I had completely missed when participating and in my first few re-watches: times where we, as participants, seemed to be talking about similar things but from distinctly different mindsets and perspectives. Moreover, it forced me to slow down and pay attention to every utterance, every break in thought. I came to appreciate the conversation not just as a participant, but as a researcher. I noticed changes in tone, laughter emphasizing or denoting points–usually critically—and the messy process of thinking. I noticed the power of things that weren’t said—what was implied; we all used a lot of “right” and “you know” as fillers, in addition to a fair amount of “uhms” and “uhs,” implying that there was a level of trust among us as peers, and that we had expectations of familiarity and shared experiences; things could be understood without being explicitly said.

    Additionally, listening to the recording so many times really made some phrases and points stand out. Hearing their emphasis and distinction compared to some of the messy thoughts we worked through highlighted them as key take-aways: the conversation wasn’t just about how to move forward with this VCePt conversation thing we are trying to do, but how to approach a new frontier and what barriers and important factors really need to be kept in mind as we do so.

    Conclusion

    From these disparate actions with transcription, common threads emerged. We felt it was important to pull these experiences together and share our understanding of how closed-captioning and transcription can enhance the Virtually Connecting experience. This may lead to an awareness of the importance of closed-captioning and accurate transcription as a way to revisit a conversation and listen deeply to the voices and ideas.

    Our first VCePt transcript has been posted to the Virtually Connecting website at:http://virtuallyconnecting.org/vc-epatient/virtually-connecting-epatient-launch/ Take a look. We’d love your comments.

    Virtually Connecting welcomes volunteers to help with closed-captioning and transcription of the Virtually Connecting ePatient sessions or any of the Virtually Connecting Ed Tech sessions.

    For VCePt, we are planning to have 1-2 sessions per month on topics that are of interest to the ePatient community. If you are interested, please contact Rebecca (rhogue@pobox.com).

    Reference

    Bird, C. M. (2005). How I Stopped Dreading and Learned to Love Transcription. Qualitative Inquiry, 11(2), 226-248. doi:10.1177/1077800404273413
    Feature image: CC licensed by Aftab Uzzaman

  • Beyond Webinars – Let’s start conversations

    I recall when Virtually Connecting first launched, we (Maha Bali and I) published an article Prof Hacker title Beyond Twitter: Virtually Connecting at Conferences. I’m now working on Virtually Connecting in the ePatient space – looking at ways we can bring patient into conversations. I feel the need to write something called Beyond Webinars – Let’s start conversations.

    I regularly have people point me to these “great things” on social media, which turn out to be experts talking to each other or presenting PowerPoint slides. These are one way webinars. The goal of them is to broadcast information, so that we can “absorb” this knowledge from experts. I do think there is a place for webinars, but I also don’t think we need more of them. The are a time sync. They are one way transmission of information. They rarely include the patient voice.

    Virtually Connecting is trying to do something different. We are not trying to be a webinar. We are not trying to broadcast information – although we do archive our conversations and I’m in the process of transcribing them (I welcome helpers in transcription). So, we do create something that can be watched or read and referenced – but that isn’t the point. The point of Virtually Connecting is to connect people.

    A friend shared with me an article about Kate Granger – a very well known patient advocate from the UK that died Saturday from an aggressive form of cancer.  She started a very active campaign known as #hellomynameis, that changed the way doctors and healthcare workers interact with patients. I am happy to report that all my doctors begin with a greeting of some kind. I feel like a person – and when I see a new doctor and they don’t treat me like a person, I move on – I replace them. Unfortunately, that isn’t an option for many people. Anyways, that isn’t my point. My point is that Kate’s message was about trying to put humanity back into medical care. Patients are people, not numbers or diseases.

    In some ways this is what I’m seeing with Webinars. Patients are being talked down to. Experts are recruited to lecture us about what we need to be doing, but they are talking from a standpoint of health privilege. They may mechanically know about our diseases, but they don’t know what it is like to actually live with the disease. The don’t get the effect that side effects can have on our lives.

    I want to see more conversations rather than lectures. I want to replace the webinars with people talking to each other – telling stories but also interacting in meaningful ways. Sure, there is a place for webinars, but they are not the be-all and end-all of what we can do. Virtually Connecting is trying to do something different. Let’s move beyond the webinar, and start having meaningful conversations.

    Virtually Connecting ePatient sessions are announced at http://VirtuallyConnecting.org and archived at http://virtuallyconnecting.org/vc-epatient/

    Feature Image: CCO from Pixabay

  • Making the private public – Why we choose to blog about illness #VCePt

    Over the last week and a half I’ve spent a lot of time meeting with people regarding my PhD research – it was one of the reasons I went to Ottawa and stayed as long as I did. Overall it was a very productive trip.

    One of my learnings from the trip was that I really need to think about my research as something that is inherently separate from what I do as a blogger and Virtually Connecting founder. I need to be able to continue doing the work I do in these areas. I need to be allowed to do it without the risk of breaching ethics requirements.

    A new Virtually Connecting project that myself and Susan Adams (@edtechinsight) launched was discussions relating to the ePatient space. I’m an insider in this space. I identify as a blogger in this space. On an aside, I had been looking for a different term than “illness blogger”, and “wellness blogging” is a totally different thing. I discovered that some authors are using the term “health blogger” and I will probably choose to adopt that term.

    Since I’m very inside the health blogging community, I know a lot of bloggers. This has meant that I can draw upon my blogger friends to have a conversation around why we chose to blog and why we share such personal details on the public internet. These questions were influenced by a session I attended at the #IHSRC35 conference last week. Researchers were trying to guess why we share what we do, but they were not inside the community so they left the session perplexed rather than with answers. This posed a great opportunity for Virtually Connecting ePatients (#VCePt) to provide a dialog that will be archived on the public internet and available for use by researchers (and anyone else who might be interested).

    If you are interested in watching or joining the session, links are available from the Virtually Connecting event announcement.

    I’m also looking for ideas about future topics for Virtually Connecting ePatient discussions. I’m thinking about using something like the Mozilla Web Literacy framework as a way to inspire questions relating to digital health literacies.

    What questions would you like to see addressed in Virtually Connecting ePatient discussions? How do we break the silos so that we are not just patients talk to patients – but rather we are having conversation between patients, healthcare providers, and researchers?

  • You don’t know me, but I know you …

    I have been reflecting on the interesting difference between Virtually Connecting (sync small group discussions broadcast live and recorded on YouTube) and blogging.

    As someone who has blogged about health issues, a lot of people “know” me from reading my other blog. It can cause a bit of an awkward experience when meeting face-to-face because these people know me, but I don’t know them. It is worsened by me not being good at remembering names (which got a lot worse after chemo). So I often end up in conversations with people who expect that I know them when in fact we don’t know each other, but they have read my blog so they feel like they know me.

    With Virtually Connecting I find the opposite to be true. I’m often not on the live Virtually Connecting session, but watch it later on YouTube. Watching the sessions gives me a sense that I “know” the people in the session, and yet I realize that we may have never actually met face-to-face or virtually. Because of the unpolished and authentic nature of Virtually Connecting (they are not scripted presentations, rather they are conversations), you get to know a sense of the person behind the professional identity. That is the beauty of Virtually Connecting. I find it interesting that I feel like I know people and they likely do not know me.

    Does anyone else feel this way?

    Feature image used under Creative Commons license. Images available from: https://pixabay.com/en/conversation-dialogue-interview-1262311/

  • On Hybridity and conference presentations…

    On Wednesday morning, at the OLC Innovate conference, we (me, Autumm Caines, Maha Bali, Whitney Kilgore, Apostolos Koutropolous, Andrea Rehn, and Alan Levine) presented a 90-minute workshop on Meeting the Potential of Hybridity: Equity, Access, and Inclusion.

    Our presentation itself was both innovative and technically risky. We had some previous experience running a hybrid workshop at the dLRN conference, however, that session did not go as well as we would have liked. We learned some lessons from that session, which informed this session. Our biggest lesson was to ensure that we had solid buddy pairs – and that the onsite and virtual buddies were well prepared to connect during the session. This was emphasized a lot in our planning meetings.

    Leading up to the conference I was swamped dealing with unexpected renovations and a home move. Fortunately, Autumm stepped in and got us on track. She setup a planning Google Doc and setup a couple of conference calls. One suggestion that she made I loved, that was to use the workshop activity time to do an empathy experiment. More specifically, to get the folks in the room talking to the virtual folks to help them better understand what it meant to attend a conference virtually.

    Coordinating a large group of co-presenters is a challenge. Our conference calls cycled through many great ideas for implementation, but they kept getting complicated. If we were going to pull this session off, we needed to simplify things. So, I took in all the great ideas, and consulted directly with Autumm and Maha to put together a simpler and cohesive workshop plan. We got buy-in from all the co-presenters.

    To setup the workshop we needed to:

    • Have a mainstage Google Hangout where all the virtual presenters could speak from the main stage
    • Good enough Internet connection to support video conferencing
    • Microphones and audio to the main stage laptop (tested before the session)
    • Mainstage laptop was turned to face the room, so that the virtual presenters could see the entire room
    • Each buddy pair (Autumm/AK, Andrea/Alan, Whitney/Maha) setup a separate virtual connection on their laptops. Each used a different technology for this video session (demonstrating that we are technology agnostic). Most of the virtual presenters chose to use different devices for the mainstage connection and the one-to-one connection, to make it easier, but also it gave them two views of the room.
    • At all times, the onsite presenters made a special effort to ensure that the virtual presenters could hear!

    Our workshop went like this:

    1. I introduced the workshop and myself
    2. Each presenter introduced themselves. We intentionally setup the introduction order to alternate between virtual and onsite, trying not to privilege either in the introductions.
    3. Autumm introduced the empathy experiment. She had setup a Google Doc for each table to take notes in. One person at each table was asked to take notes in the Google Doc, so that the virtual person could see the notes.
    4. The room was split into three groups. We had about 8 people per table, which was the perfect number of attendees. One of the buddy pairs sat at each table, and the virtual buddy talked about their experience as a virtual attendee. They talked about their environment and why they were attending virtually. The workshop participants had a chance to ask questions and interact directly with the virtual person. The onsite buddies did a great job of keeping the participant who was speaking in view. Many people commented that it felt like the virtual person was actually there. The virtual presenters also commented that they felt like they were in the room.
    5. Whitney ran a quick debrief of the empathy experiment allowing each of the tables to share ah-ha moments.
    6. Andrea introduced the action plan activity. Now that the workshop participants had a better understanding of the virtual experience, they were asked to come up with an action plan on what they would do to help support virtual attendees. Again, each buddy pair went to the same table, and the conversations at the tables continued. Notes were taken in the Google Docs (Andrea/Alan, Autumm/AK,  Whitney/Maha).
    7. Rather than having someone in the room present the results, we turned things around again and had the Virtual presenters (on the main stage) present the learnings from their tables.
    8. We had a little time at the end to talk about Virtually Connecting. Since we had another session planned that demonstrated Virtually Connecting – the Virtually Connecting Fishbowl led by Autumm – we advertised that session as the follow up to the workshop.

    The design of the workshop itself involved a lot of technology. We relied heavily on the conference internet connection. I am still rather amazed that we managed to get four video conference sessions (mainstage and each buddy pair) running at the same time without any glitches. We also managed to get audio to work well enough for the virtual presenters to hear everything!

    The magic in this workshop came right after the empathy experiment, when the tables were reporting on their ah-ha moments. At that time, the onsite buddies brought each of the virtual buddies to the table. At one point, two of them bumped into each other and the virtual presenters saw each other on the laptops. It was a funny, sort of surreal experience generating a lot of laughter. It was something that we never thought of.

    As the lead facilitator for this session, my job was to watch the time and keep the workshop flowing. It also allowed me time to walk around the room and take pictures.

    I am so very proud that we were able to pull this off. All the co-presenters did an amazing job. Autumm orchestrated all the logistics (like having bit.ly links to all the Google Docs, and paper printouts for each table to make it easier), without which things may have been chaotic instead of running smoothly. I’m a little jealous that I wasn’t one of the buddies, so I didn’t get to experience the amazing connections that happened at each table. I watched as connections began to form between all the participants at the various tables. It was pretty awesome to see.

    Maha, AK, and Alan each blogged about their experience as virtual presenters:

    Were you there? What did you think of the workshop? 

    Here is an album of photos from the session:

    OLC Innovate 2016 - Hybridity Workshop

     

  • Social media and ePatient blogging – a Virtually Connecting special issue

    When Dr. Michelle Schira Hagerman (@mshagerman) asked me to speak to her class about my experience as an ePatient blogger and my upcoming PhD research I thought it would be a great opportunity to facilitate an expansion to Virtually Connecting. I have wanted to do more in Virtually Connecting in the ePatient space since we did the first sessions at the Queens University of Belfast ePatient blogging and microblogging conference last September.

    In the discussion, I talk about the impact illness blogging (http://bcbecky.com) has had on me, but also the ethical and identity implications of blogging about illness. I mention a free course I created to help those who might want to blog through their illness (http://shouldiblog.org). I mention a twitter chat that helped me get connected and talk about breast cancer (#bcsm). We also touch on the learning theories that influence my research, specifically connectivism and cognitive flexibility theory – both of which I’ll be writing more about as I prepare my PhD ethics proposal and dissertation.

    I look forward to doing more Virtually Connecting sessions within the ePatient (patient engagement and advocacy space). The next session in this area is being planned as part of the Medical Humanities stream at the American Society of Geographers (AAG) conference at the end of March.

    Here is the video of our discussion:

  • The agency of space and devices

    This is perhaps one of what I hope to be many reflections on my experiences at the #dlrn15 conference – actually, this is more of a reflection on Virtually Connecting in general – in part on how it has evolved but also on a few things we have learned over the last seven months.

    First and foremost, I want to say thank-you to everyone who has been involved in Virtually Connecting. We have over 30 volunteers that help us run Virtually Connecting, and at least that many more who have joined in with our conversations.

    Here is a graphic map showing where most of the volunteers are from (thanks Alan Levine-@cogdog). Sorry to those whose pins got missed – we grew very quickly over the last month, and as such, some people got missed. It was not intentional!

    New new10_15 map

    I want to share one more image before I reflect more on agency of space and devices. This image illustrates a brief history of Virtually Connecting. It all began in April 2015 (hard to believe it was only seven months ago) at the Emerging Technologies for Online Learning Conference (#et4online). Afterwards, Maha and I wrote a couple of articles – one for Hybrid Pedagogy and another for Prof Hacker – that helped to promote the idea. After receiving requests from friends to “do it again” at different conferences, we began to grow the idea. It evolved into Virtually Connecting. After the Digital Pedagogy Lab (#digped) in August, momentum increased. We needed a slack group to help us organize ourselves. Even now, that doesn’t seem to be enough. I’ll be reflecting more and we will be doing some debriefing to help us find our way forward. Here the image that we presented at the OLC annual conference and at dLRN15:

    VConnecting-Evolution

     

    Ok, so now that you have a bit of the backstory – let me start my reflection on agency. I’ve been involved in a study that uses Actor Network Theory (ANT) as an underpinning to looking at phenomenon. One of the key premises behind ANT is that things other than people also have agency. That is, things (both physical objects and even conceptual ones) can exert influence. For this post, I want to look at two things that have agency for Virtually Connecting – the physical space of the hangouts, and the devices used onsite. In both cases, I think these help to set the stage and tone for the interaction. At this point in time, this is my hypothesis. It is something that I want to investigate further. We now have quite a few video clips, so we have data that can be looked at to determine if these hypothesis make any sense.

    First is the physical space. After #et4online, we started to pay more attention to the onsite spaces for Virtually Connecting sessions. Ideally, we want conferences to provide us with a quiet space, but when that is not possible, we do our best to find a quiet corner. At the #dLRN conference, I had originally thought we could use a round table on the third floor. It was a prettier, more inviting space. Unfortunately, it became clear during the first five minutes that the space was going to be too loud. People onsite could not hear those on the hangout. We then opted to move into the room – which has been allocated as a backup space. The room was dedicated for us. This made it really easy to tell people where they need to go for a session. It also meant that we could have our conversations without interruption. However, it also meant that people couldn’t see us. If they were not explicitly invited into the conversation, they could not easily sit there and lurk.

    Looking at other vconnecting sessions (e.g. HASTAC and ALTC) – we found couches that backed onto a wall. The spaces were shared spaces. There were times when the noise levels posed a challenge. However, the location provided a sense of informality. It felt more like people sitting on a couch, hanging out, having a conversation. It didn’t feel as formal.

    The other aspect of agency that we need to consider is the devices used onsite. At #et4online, we used my iPhone and iPad almost exclusively. I still prefer to use a mobile device for session. I think there is something about passing around a device when having a conversation. However, that also made more sense when there are only a few virtual people. When it was just Maha and I, then my phone became the embodiment of Maha. It made sense. When the onsite location is a couch, a mobile device often makes more sense. It aligns with the informality. It fits.

    In several other instances, the onsite device has been a laptop. When we are sitting a table, a laptop has some benefits. The biggest being that it doesn’t need to be held (so we don’t have people with sore arms!). There is also the option to show the Hangout chat text. It means that the onsite folks can see the backchannel that the virtual folks are participating in. What is interesting here, is that the onsite folks cannot really participate in that backchannel, but they can see it. There is a whole other layer of agency associated with seeing or not seeing that backchannel. It was quite funny the first time this happened – during a presentation at #digped – those of us who were virtual had no idea that the onsite folks could see our chat. It almost felt embarrassing (or worrisome) as we had thought it was a backchannel that was private to those who were virtual.

    The biggest issue with agency of device is not so much which device but whose device. This has been a problem in a couple of instances, where the person who owned the device needed it. It resulted in the sense of an “abrupt stop” to the conversation. This happens when the onsite person who owns the device needs it – but the others onsite might be willing to (or wanting to) stick around and continue the conversation. There can be a sense that the onsite person is “trapped” in the session because their device is being held hostage. Of course this is not a problem when things are running smoothly, and the conversation is able to end naturally. The issue has happened at least twice. It is something that we need to be more aware of.

    In summary, there are two aspects of agency with the objects in virtually connecting that I think we need to do more analysis on. The first is the space where we host our sessions. The second is the device that is used for the session itself.

    What do you think? What other aspects of virtually connecting should we be considering for further reflection / analysis? For those that have been involved, what role do you think the onsite location plays? How about the onsite devices?

  • Deepening connections

    Over the last few weeks I’ve had the privilege of deepening connections. I’ve been lucky enough to have been healthy enough and had funds enough to travel to the UK to attend two conferences (ALT-C Ed Tech Conference and QUB ePatient Blogging conference). This was quickly followed up by the Medicine X Ed conference here at Stanford, and later today I’ll be heading over to the Health 2.0 conference in Santa Clara. It has been a whirlwind. Somewhere in the middle I even did a reading as part of a book launch.

    I’ve been writing this post in my head over and over since my return from the UK. Meeting people face-to-face for the first time can be very emotional, invigorating, and stimulating. There can be magic. However, this isn’t always the case. Sometimes when you meet in person, things just don’t work out. It is like the messiness that is life. No one is perfect, and yet we have a tendency to want to project that perfection on our virtual friends. That being said, we sometimes are surprised at just how nice people are in person. This post is about a few of the genuinely nice people that I had the pleasure to connect with in real life (IRL) – note that I dislike this term, but it is what is commonly used and is easier to type.

    My point behind this post is to share some of the great times I’ve had over the last few weeks. Let’s start by the opportunity to meet Maha Bali. She was my friend and confidant throughout my cancer treatment. She was the first online friend that I told. I made a request of her, asking for some scarves, as she would know what it meant to wear a head covering on a hot summer day. She obliged but did something even more meaningful. She sent me some scarves that she bought for me, but also shared with me scarves that were hers. She shared a tradition that is common among muslim women. I was so deeply honored.

    This was the first selfie we too right after meeting in real life (IRL) for the first time:

    Photo & Video Sharing by SmugMugMaha’s daughter understood it sooner than we did. For her, it was no big deal. I was just Rebecca. She was used to seeing me on the screen and hearing my voice. Being physically present didn’t change anything. Meanwhile Maha and I spent a lot of time poking each other, hugging, validating that we were in the same physical space. It was special.

    While we were in Manchester, there were so many people who wanted to meet Maha. It was a challenge to get any alone time. In the end, I was able to sneak in about 10 minutes of alone time – unfortunately, it was because I just needed a hug after hearing of Jaq’s passing. Again, I was able to call on my dear friend and confident.

    We were in Manchester to present at the ALT conference, with our other rhizo friends and colleagues. Sarah has posted our presentation on her blog here: Rhizocats. In the end, I didn’t see too much of the conference itself, other than the two keynotes and a couple of sessions. I chose to skip out on the sessions in favour of spending time with Maha and supporting our Virtually Connecting project.

    It was sad to say goodbye to Maha and her daughter, but I’m so glad I had the chance to meet IRL.

    And one last selfie for the road:
    Photo & Video Sharing by SmugMug

    I then went on to the Queens University of Belfast ePatient Blogging and Microblogging conference. Here I got to meet a whole bunch of really amazing people. I’ve already blogged about how I found my tribe there, and how the conference helped give me language to better describe the type of research I want to do (one word – autopathography).

    After the conference AnneMarie Cunningham, a friend I met at the Canadian Conference for Medical Education (CCME) in Ottawa two months before diagnosis (April 2014). When AnneMarie last came to San Francisco in October 2014, she reached out and said it would be nice to connect. Since chemo had made me unable to drive, my husband took a day off work and we toured around with AnneMarie and her husband. We enjoyed playing tour guides, but forgot to mention one thing … never turn your back on the ocean!

    Photo & Video Sharing by SmugMug

    After the QUB conference, AnneMarie brought me with her while she called on a friend from her university days in Belfast. It was interesting to learn a little bit more about Northern Ireland through the lens of old friends. I learned that in Northern Ireland, flags carry political connotations. After a brief visit, we headed out of town, passing a flute band on the street, which is yet another politically charged icon (Google Belfast Flute Bands). As we were leaving town we past by an odd sculpture called Rise, on the west side of Belfast. The locals call the sculpture either ‘The balls of the falls’ or ‘westicle’, which made us laugh.

    I had mentioned to AnneMarie that back in the early 80s I had a penpal from Ireland – Castleblayney in county Monagham. It was through my penpal that I learned about ‘the troubles’ in Northern Ireland. Since it was almost on the way to AnneMarie’s mothers place, we drove through Castleblayney. We couldn’t find a castle to take a picture of, so instead, we took a picture of the festivities that we had just missed (arriving about 5 hours too late) – the Irish Bog Snorkelling Championships:
    Photo & Video Sharing by SmugMug

    After Castleblayney, we headed to Kilkeel and AnneMarie’s mother place, where we spent the night. The next day, AnneMarie’s mother’s birthday, we went out to a nice lunch and I had a chance to meet a couple of AnneMarie’s siblings.

    After lunch, we went on a bit of a tour of the area. I mentioned to AnneMarie that I had no yet been to a castle on this trip (I love castles). We drove over to take a peak at Greencastle Royal Castle:

    Photo & Video Sharing by SmugMug

    We were surprised to learn that the castle was open to the public. Not at all dressed appropriately for tromping around castles, we did it anyways:
    Photo & Video Sharing by SmugMug

    One of the people I was really looking forward to meeting at the QUB ePatient conference was Marie Ennis O’Connor. Unfortunately, she was not well enough to travel that week so we didn’t get to meet IRL. Fortunately, the following week both AnneMarie and Marie were coming to Stanford to present at Medicine X Ed. So I had a chance to connect with both of them again here:

    Photo & Video Sharing by SmugMug

    This time it was my turn to play tour guide. I had some lovely moments with both AnneMarie and Marie. I as able to share my tree with each of them:

    Photo & Video Sharing by SmugMug

    Photo & Video Sharing by SmugMug

    AnneMarie was here a little longer, so we took a quick drive up to Muir woods to see some of the giant coastal redwoods:
    Photo & Video Sharing by SmugMug

    I love the little (and big) things I learn about people when I get to spend a little time with them. I value my online friendships, but I have to admit that my connections go deeper when I get a chance to be with people in real life. I am honored to be able to call Maha, AnneMarie, and Marie friends. It has been such a pleasure to be able to spend some time connecting.

    One thing I have learned about my closest online friends – they are all connectors. They are all people who thrive off of feeding relationships, and connecting people to one another. It is something that I also enjoy doing. I love it when something that I do brings two people together – catalyzing a new connection. It is not uncommon for our conversations to go something like “do you know this person?” or “you should meet this person” or “let me connect you to this person”. I see it in all of us. It is how we weave our webs.

  • Virtually Connecting at the QUB ePatient conference (#qubept)

    After all the excited from the ALTC Conference in Manchester, I flew back to Belfast to attend a conference on ePatient – The medical, ethical and legal repercussions of blogging and micro-blogging experiences of illness and disease (#qubept). It was a small conference of about 30 attendees. You would not have known how small it was by the very active twitter backchannel – which Marie Ennis O’Connor has storified here: Day 1 Storify, Day 2 Storify.

    For Virtually Connecting, this conference represented our first experience outside of Educational Technology. Personally, I think the area of patient engagement is one that could benefit a lot from this type of short but powerful conversation. We did two hangouts, one at the beginning of the conference and another at the end.

    Wondering what ePatients are? Watch the first video and learn a bit about what the conference was all about. The discussion included mentions about the need for improved digital literacy skills, which is something I try to address in my ShouldIBlog.org free course (which was mentioned a few times during the conference).

    In the hangout, AnneMarie Cunningham mentions Liz O’riordan’s blog: Breast Surgeon with Breast Cancer.

    The pre-conference hangout stars:

    Onsite: Rebecca Hogue, AnneMarie Cunningham, and Steven Wilson
    Online: Autumm Caines, Kate Bowles, Marie Ennis O’Connor, and Terri Coutee

    In the post-conference hangout we talked about the idea of needing to make a change from Patient-centered care to Patient networked care – and idea that was brought up during the second keynote by Julie Kennedy. In the after show (after the onsite folks left) Stacey Tinianov highlights the gap in patient voices, specifically those who are not digitally connected.

    Watch the post conference hangout, starring:

    Online: Suzan Koseoglu, Marie Ennis O’Connor, Stacey Tinianov, Alene Nitzky, and Annette McKinnon
    Onsite:Rebecca Hogue, Cathy Ure, and AnneMarie Cunningham

    What this experience has taught us is that Virtually Connecting has value outside of Educational Technology conferences. It has also help to point out a need within the ePatient community to help foster connections between ePatients. It also has highlighted the desire to connect patients to clinicians (e.g. physicians, nurses, etc).

    I’m not sure yet what the next steps will be for Virtually Connecting within the ePatient space. I’m open to suggestions. Please leave a comment with your ideas.

  • @vconnecting and connecting at ALT-C

    Over the last couple of days I’ve been onsite at the ALT-C conference in Manchester UK. This is a rather large conference (over 500 participants), mostly educational technologists in the UK. As with any large conference, there are cliques, which are great if you are in them, and not so great if you are not.

    For me, the ALT-C conference was all about meeting Maha Bali in person, and spending time with her. It was also about being onsite for Virtually Connecting – something I have not done since the initial virtually connecting at the OLC Emerging Technologies and Learning (#et4online) conference. It was Maha’s first time being an onsite buddy. I loved the opportunity to show her what I vconnecting looks like from my side of the camera.

    Over the course of two days, we did five virtually connecting sessions, four of which were at the conference, and one which was a more informal hangout with Maha and I shortly after we met for the first time. What I love most about hosting vconnecting sessions onsite is how the sessions enable people to connect. In some ways, it gave me an opportunity to speak to people I otherwise would not have reached out to. It was those connections that make this project worthwhile for me. I also saw how it gave other people an opportunity to connect – I saw a fostering of connections that I had not anticipated.

    One challenge we face with vconnecting is to not have it take away from the onsite conference experience. It is a difficult challenge – and one we are most often criticized for. Virtually connecting is still evolving. We are trying to figure out ways in which to make it mutually beneficial. There is a lot to it that is not seen – and those unseen parts are what matters. The connections that are deeper because of all the logistics that go into planning a session. The connections that happen after the cameras are off – both onsite and virtually – the conversations don’t stop just because we have turned off the live stream. Doing too much vconnecting while onsite does detract from the conference experience. It is about balance. We hope to have more people involved onsite, such that one person isn’t overwhelmed with the responsibility. We also will try to limit the number of sessions. A lot of energy goes into making them happen.

    My ALT-C experience was about making deeper connections – it wasn’t about volume of connections, rather about depth of connection. After the OLC Emerging Technologies and Learning conference and the SMSociety Conference, I had reflected on being a conference insider. At ALT-C I was definitely not an insider. I knew very few people – however, virtually connecting gave me a reason to talk to people. It gave me chance to be part of a clique within the conference – almost like a conference within a conference.

    The connection that deepened the most was my bond with Maha Bali. We are friends, buddies, kindred spirits. I am so glad that I had the privilege that has made this connection possible.

    One last selfie for the road:

    RebeccaMahaHoda

     

  • Watching your baby grow up – reflections on Virtually Connecting (@vconnecting) at #digped

    Back in April, my friend Maha and I decided to try out a new way of connecting. The idea came to us out of a desire to share the physical experiences of being onsite at a conference with each other. For a variety of reasons, Maha was unable to travel to the conference. She is a master at virtual conference participation, but really wanted to be able to connect with people at the conference. I on the other hand, could physically attend, but often find myself too shy to approach people that I don’t already know. I usually introduce myself to random people, but find it difficult to approach the presenters and speakers – I don’t always have the confidence and fear that I won’t know what to say. That is, in part, the beauty of being an onsite buddy – if I don’t know what to say I can always pass along the conversation to those who are online!

    Anyways, I am rambling a bit. If you want the backstory on Virtually Connecting, you can read it in our Hybrid Pedagogy piece for Maha’s Column or Prof Hacker piece.

    Today, I want to reflect on how Virtually Connecting is growing up. In part this is because the folks who organize the Digital Pedagogy Institute (#digped) were willing to have us crash their party – in that they openly invited us to participate in their onsite Institute experience.

    Shortly after our initial #et4online experience, several folks volunteered to be onsite buddies (thanks Lisa Hammershaimb – @merryspaniel, Sarah Hammershaimb – @s_hammershaimb, and Andrea Rehn – @profrehn). This allowed us to have more virtually connecting sessions without me or Maha needing to be physically present. We learned very quickly that there are several people out there that are awesome onsite hosts – however, there is also a need for a lot of background work. In some ways, the spontaneity of the sessions we did for our initial #et4buddy isn’t there – there is a lot less giggling on tape – however, what is there is a lot more quality conversations.

    Tuesday, we did our first formal presentation about Virtually Connecting, virtually via a virtual connecting session (how meta of us). This was the first time we’ve had a full cast joining the hangout live. We explain a little about what virtually connecting is, and had some fun trying to interact with the classroom.

    With a little advanced planning, and announcing of schedules for our virtually connecting sessions, we are able to get more people involved. We had so many people sign up for a couple of our sessions that we had to turn people away. We had filled all our virtual spots. Online folks want to be able to join in the conversation.

    We are also having really rich pre and post game discussions – that is, the time before we go live and the time after the folks who are onsite leave. The pre-game discussions, unfortunately, are not recorded. We often end up discussing things like what the heck “lower third” means in Google Hangouts on Air, and how to set it. We talk about challenging the bio, and encourage people to share something interesting about themselves in their introductions. The post-game show is an opportunity for those who are online to reflect on what the onsite people said, but also to continue the conversation.

    One way Virtually Connecting has grown this week is that in addition to new onsite hosts, we also brought on several new people to help with the online facilitation (thanks Autumm Caines – @autumm, AK – @koutropoulos, and Alan Levine – @cogdog). Today’s session marked the first time that neither Maha nor I were on the virtually connecting hangout. It also marked the first session where the gender balance tipped predominately on the male side rather than the female side. This is something we had been very curious about – was there something specifically gendered about the idea of virtually connecting? We’ll be watching to see how this grows.

    Mostly I’m impressed with quality of the conversations. I’m impressed with the ability to have dialogue across the boundaries of cyberspace. And I’m impressed with how Virtually Connecting is also allowing networks to converge. With each hangout I am meeting new people, and these new people are introducing me to more new people. More than that, the quality of my connections is growing. I’m not just meeting new people, I’m getting to know more about them. I’m getting to hear their ideas. I’m growing at the same time as I watch Virtually Connecting grow up, and that is pretty cool too.

     

     

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