Writing about writing
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I am writing the Going East book in present tense. This brings the reader along with us, as if they are sitting on the bicycle seat along for the ride. I recall my English classes, being taught not to mix my tenses. And yet, as a creative writer, that is exactly what I’m learning to
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When writing memoir, where do you draw the line? Can dialogue be made up if it helps propel the story forward, and the essence of it is true? When you read memoir, does dialogue make you trust the author less?
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The eBook version of my book Never knew I wanted to be a breast cancer survivor, will be free to download on Amazon today (Thursday) and tomorrow (Friday). Also, if you are Kindle Unlimited, you can read it anytime for free. If you read it, I ask that you please, please, pretty please, leave an
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I did my first real author reading at a conference on Saturday – the Fantastic Grown-up Book Fair happened to be located about a half hour drive from my house. I decided to sign up to do an author reading – figuring I might as well try jumping into the community of local authors. There
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As part of my reconciliation responsibility, I am committing to updating my land acknowledgement on an annual basis. As a descendant of a settler, it is my responsibility to learn more about the Indigenous communities who walked this land well before my ancestors arrived. Ever Forward Books is located in Sin So’sepe’katik (sin-SO-say’bay-a-tik), the ancestral and unceded
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“The road immediately grows darker under the mountain’s shadow. Evergreens shade the highway; what little light we receive comes through the narrow sliver of leaden sky overhead…while the highway shoulder is thinner than a slice of toast. Alisha and I switch on our bike lights, but compared to car headlights our beams appear pitiful. As
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Cycling along the northern shore of Lake Superior between Thunder Bay and Wawa, I notice how few towns and services there are. We can ride for four to six hours without passing a gas station or convenience store, making me appreciate every mom-and-pop shop that appears out of nowhere on these long stretches of lake,…
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Kristen Jokinen’s Joy Ride is a memoir chronicling a 21-month cycling journey from Alaska to Argentina—the Americas from North to South, with her husband, Ville. Throughout the over 18,000 miles of their journey, they endured bad weather, rough roads, and dog attacks. Primarily living in their tent, on a limited budget, they met many people as they…
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have wanted to demystify the editing process for a while. I find that the term “editing” has been used as one thing, and “editor” as one person, but that doesn’t align with my experience in either technical writing or creative nonfiction. I wanted to get a better sense of the editing process from a book…
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Part of my preparation for the start of grad school – in case you missed it, I’m starting an MFA in Creative Nonfiction at the University of Kings College this summer – is to figure out the best tools to support and organize my writing. When working on my PhD and my memoir, I use
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I recently saw Sweet Ride as a musical before reading the book—a reversal of my usual preference. Set in 1943, the story follows four women cycling over 500 miles from Nova Scotia to PEI during WWII. The theatre production was delightful, but the book gave me more to chew on—especially as a writer. While I…
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Helen grew up in Northeastern BC. I grew up in Northwestern BC. I know the towns and roads she mentions in the book. And yet I know so little about the life that she led. The colonial town of Kitimat, where I lived, was fifteen kilometres from the reservation of Kitamaat, home of the Haisla…
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I’ve also been learning to give myself permission not to finish books. Even more, I’m now allowing myself to write about books I don’t like. That part is tricky. I don’t want to write negative reviews, especially when my lack of engagement doesn’t necessarily mean the book is bad. More often than not, it just…
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What I took from his talk, my own interpretation, even if it diverges from his intention, is that we all write memoir from three selves. The first self is who you were when the events happened. Writing from that space requires remembering not just the facts, but how you felt, thought, and made sense of…
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One lesson that stayed with me from that first reading was the importance of writing a crappy first draft…For me, the first draft is about getting the ideas out of my head and onto the page. The act of writing itself helps me clarify and organize my thoughts. Until they’re written down, those ideas are…
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The first difference for me is in the audience. Autoethnography is written for academics. Memoir is generally written for a wider audience – the general public or a specific subset of the general public. The real difference is in the purpose. Autoethnography at its heart is about the analysis of the experience. Memoir is about…
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I’m thrilled to share that I’ve been accepted into the Master of Arts in Creative Nonfiction program at the University of King’s College. Going back to school is both exciting. I can’t wait to see what I’m going to learn, but also to meet amazing people. My goal with this degree is to finally write
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There is an ongoing debate—or perhaps more accurately, a mix of debate and shaming—around the use of AI in writing. As a writer, I find myself asking: If I use AI, am I a cheat? Does it matter whether my writing was assisted by AI?
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This isn’t your typical book review. I’m not going to summarize the plot in detail; instead, I’ll share why I recommend the book and, more importantly, what I learned about writing by reading it. Because right now, I’m reading (and re-reading) memoirs with a purpose: to improve my own storytelling.
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I tried writing this morning and I found a “new” feature in my writing app, which is current Scrivener. All of a sudden, Scrivener had predictive text. This is a feature that is sometimes useful when you are writing a text or email on your phone. It helps you write something quickly when your reply…
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One of the questions my students often ask me is: How do you stay current with trends in instructional design? As someone who primarily teaches instructional design these days, staying up to date is a crucial part of my work. It’s not just about keeping my courses relevant; it’s about ensuring that I can guide
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I enjoy listening to TV shows while I cook and relax, often doing jigsaw puzzles on my iPad. A feature I’ve found incredibly useful is descriptive audio. Similar to closed captions for the hearing impaired, descriptive audio narrates the visual elements crucial to the storyline. This doesn’t mean it describes everything; it selectively enhances understanding
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As an instructional designer, I understand the dilemma of deciding on a policy regarding the use of AI in our courses. The options presented – either banning AI or allowing it with attribution – seem limiting and don’t fully capture the potential of AI as a valuable tool for instructional designers. Personally, I believe that
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Feature image created by Adobe Firefly. When I ask ChatGPT about the benefits of AI for instructional design, one of the things it calls out is personalized learning. “Personalized Learning Experience: ChatGPT can provide a highly personalized learning experience by tailoring responses to the individual learner’s needs and preferences. It can adapt the content and
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Feature image created by DALL-E 2 an AI: a female instructional designer interviewing a chatbot with a question mark in the foreground As I review and prepare lessons for the next week of class, I ask myself what value can ChatGPT add to either my class or the instructional design process that we are exploring
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This post is a continuation on my discussion about Patient Health Literacy. The narrative that resulted from this study has been published on Amazon. See my Memoir page. The original source that I used for my study can be found at https://bcbecky.com. In reviewing the posts categorized as Navigating the healthcare system, I constructed the following themes: (1) learning
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This post is a continuation on my discussion about Patient Health Literacy. The narrative that resulted from this study has been published on Amazon. See my Memoir page. The original source that I used for my study can be found at https://bcbecky.com
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I asked ChatGPT to write me a blog post about teaching instructional design. It clearly writes blog posts that are intended to be advertisement type material. Here is the post that it wrote: The Importance of Teaching Instructional Design: Preparing Students for a Career in E-Learning and Educational Technology Instructional design is the process of
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This post is a continuation on my discussion about Patient Health Literacy. The narrative that resulted from this study has been published on Amazon. See my Memoir page. The original source that I used for my study can be found at https://bcbecky.com. From among the 237 blog posts, I coded 163 (68.8%) with the category,
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I have finally taken the leap and published my breast cancer memoir: Never knew I wanted to be a breast cancer survivor. This memoir began as a Autoethnographic PhD study. I analyzed the first year of blog posts written on BC Becky, my breast cancer blog. My analysis involved constructing themes. The themes helped me
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In September I launched Demystifying Instructional Design – a podcast where I interview instructional designers about what instructional designers do. I’ve just finished posting my 9th episode! Initially I didn’t feel like I could call myself a podcaster, because I just started. Now that I have almost a full season under my belt, I feel
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I haven’t been blogging much lately. In part this is because I have a new project that is occupying my spare time! I can no officially call myself a ‘podcaster’. I have launch Demystifying Instructional Design, a podcast where I interview instructional designers about different aspects of their jobs. My first round of interviews focused
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Very little is written about how to make a better instructor experience. I figured I’d share a few of my tips for instructor efficiency. What tips do you have to improve instructor efficiency when teaching online?
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I’ve been teaching online for more than five years and most of my courses involve a significant teamwork project. In my course on the Design and Instruction of Online Courses course, I highlight to my students that most students have never been taught how to work in an online team. They may have learned how…
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One of my students this semester made an interesting observation that had not occurred to me.
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The portfolio landing page (which generally is a person’s “about me” page), should have an appealing and modern aesthetic. It should be clean and uncluttered (less is more) and an intuitive interface. The navigation should be simple and well structured.
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I spend the better part of the last 9 years working on a PhD. A lot happened in that window. A lot of life changing transitions. I was diagnosed with breast cancer, I lost my father, and then a year and a half later I lost my mother. These each had a profound impact on
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Introduction/welcome to the session topic. 10-minute breakout in small groups. Presentation / Q&A. 15-minute breakout into small groups. Debrief small group activity, close.
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1 – keep the size reasonable (4-6 works best) 2 – Find a comfortable seat …
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I listened to a great #unboundeq conversation the other day (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IG64Fx0vv8M). The thing that has stuck with me the most is that we should stop calling this sudden transition “online learning” as it conflates all the work of those of us who work in online learning. What we are dealing with is learning during a
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I’ve been taking a course on Sociocracy – Sociocracy Empowered Learning Circles by Sociocracy For All – Sociocracy is an interesting way of governing an organization. It is sometimes also called Dynamic Governance. Why would I be taking a course on sociocracy? I recently joined an organization that uses sociocracy as its way of governing.
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I used to see blog posts In everything I did While walking the words would come to me While showering the words would come to me While sleeping the words would come to me But today the world is silent Friends lost Parents lost There is a silence in my world All the while, The
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Keynote Augmented Human: How Technology is shaping the new reality What might not be clear from the title is that this session was all about Augmented Reality (AR). This was presented by Dr. Helen Papagiannis who is author of the book Augmented Human. I didn’t take a lot of notes during this session so I
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The first keynote – Sophia the robot The conference began with the initial keynote done by Sophia the robot. Honestly I would say that this keynote was not up to the standard of what I have come to expect of a DevLearn keynote. I was a little disappointed. I couldn’t help but think that this
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I’ve been reflecting on the complex topic of hybrid video – and specially, video conferencing when there is a large group (like a classroom) face-to-face but also a group of people online. Even when the groups are not large – say 6 online and 6 in face-to-face in the same room. Making conversations work –
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Are you a lecturer that doesn’t lecture? What do you do to present content or orient students to the lesson content?
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What time saving tips to do you have? How do you stay sane while providing students with meaningful feedback? I found myself teaching three courses in a semester. I found myself typing in the same things over and over. At first, it was my Zoom room URL, then it was certain aspects of feedback.
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Have you taught an ePortfolio / online presence course? This summer I had the privilege of designing and teaching a course that involved creating ePortfolios. I drew upon a lot of my prior experience and knowledge about open education and online learning to design the course. From a learning theory perspective, connectivism and heutagogy were…
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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
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An article in the BMJ blog about The transformative power of patient narratives in healthcare education crossed my stream today. This timing could not be more appropriate as I am working on the discussion for my dissertation and working through the concept of health literacy. From the article, Baines, Denniston, and Munro (2018, July 8),
