Ruminations of an Online Instructor / MD

Blog Comment Strategy for Day 28

In looking at the challenge activity for today, I suddenly realized that I don’t have a particular Blog Commenting Strategy.

Prior to the challenge, I would comment under the following situations. I comment when

I find something or a post that I am interested in
If I think that an article has been done well, to leave praise
To leave a related link and share information.
To thank the blogger or commenter for something.

According Caroline Middlebrook in her post on Do You Have A Blog Commenting Strategy? there are several distinct goals when leaving comments on other people’s blogs. Caroline’s goals for leaving blog comments are:

Grab the attention of the readers
Grab the attention of the blogger
Develop my personal brand
Create some backlinks

Out of these reasons, I would only be using the “Create some backlinks” and “Grab the attention of the blogger” since this is the only category that fits with my other main reason for commenting, to share information. I hadn’t really thought about using blog comments to develop my personal brand.

If I start doing this, I need to ensure that my comments don’t end up being viewed as blog spam or Spam in Blogs.

More on Blog Commenting Presence

Michele commented on yesterday’s post, on Personal Branding:

…a big part of communicating about our brand and what we stand for, but we also say something about ourselves by the comments we leave elsewhere. How do you feel you communicate about yourself through the comments you leave on other blogs?

I realize that I’d set up a different presence for commenting on the Edublog Blogs and for commenting on Blogger Blogs

For Edublogs I am drdyer

I liked the Voki so much that I decided to use it as my edublogger persona. The Voki was also a way of creating bit of a different blog presence and blog comment presence from the one that I use for Blogger, perhaps to create a new presence for my edublog.

For Blogger Blogs I am Kirsti A. Dyer (probably going back to Kirsti A. Dyer, MD)

My Blogger presence uses a real photo of myself that is a couple of years old. This is the photo and the name that I use professionally , so the Blogger presence is more of a professional representation.

Answering Michele’s question: How do you feel you communicate about yourself through the comments you leave on other blogs?

I think that my blog personas send out a strong ‘professional’ message, so much so that it may discourage others (particularly in my Blogger blogs) from commenting. Since my Personal Branding, or Strong Internet Presence involves my background, my credentials and my professional degrees, I don’t believe I could do this any differently, unless I were to create a different “Mom Blogger” persona for use in a more personal setting.

Continue reading Blog Comment Strategy for Day 28…

Exploring Other Ways to Comment for Day 26

Since the challenge for today was to think about using multimedia and other ways to comment on blogs I decided to review and explore some ways of using multimedia in this blog and for blog commenting.

My Voki

The first multimedia application that came to mind for today’s activity was the use of the Voki.

The Voki is a fun way of creating a talking voice character or a computer-generated avatar, but it wouldn’t be easily available for posting comments in a blog.

Sharing a Health, Nutrition & Wellness Lecture

The next multimedia option was using .docstoc. I’ve already included one lecture of my on the Ethical Challenges of the Medical and Healthcare Internet in a prior post on Discovering Medical Ethical Challenges Lecture on .docstoc.

I uploaded a new lecture to my .docstoc one that I recently gave on Health, Nutrition and Wellness, on How to Live a HEALTHY LIFE.

.docstoc is a great way of sharing professional documents, such as PowerPoint presentations. It would be more than one might need to respond to a typical blog post, but might be included as a linked reference.

A Look at Other Multimedia Options

I’d already briefly looked at several multimedia options for getting PowerPoint Lectures online.

• .docstoc – http://www.docstoc.com - .docstoc is a user generated community where you can find and share professional documents. Upload your documents for all the world to share.
• Slideshare – http://www.slideshare.net – SlideShare is the world’s largest community for sharing presentations. It is the best way to get your slides out there on the web, so your ideas can be found and shared by a wide audience.
• Slides on Line – http://www.slidesonline.org – a digital library made for physicians worldwide to access slide presentation on most updated research and clinical disorders.

Two new Multimedia options discovered as part of Day 24’s post include:

• VoiceThread – http://voicethread.com – A VoiceThread is an online media album that can hold essentially any type of media (images, documents and videos) and allows people to make comments in 5 different ways – using voice (with a microphone or telephone), text, audio file, or video (with a webcam) – and share them with anyone they wish. They can even be exported to an Archival Movie for offline use on a DVD or video-enabled MP3 player. A VoiceThread allows group conversations to be collected and shared in one place, from anywhere in the world.
• Scrapblog – http://www.scrapblog.com – Scrapblog enables everyday people to express themselves online in a creative way. This service allows for combining photos, videos, audio and text to create multimedia scrapbooks.

Another Multimedia option that I’ve seen used quite a bit.

• One True Media – http://www.onetruemedia.com – One True Media an easy-to-use online service that makes consumers both producer and director of their own video creations. We offer an innovative and painless way to transform video and photos into polished video montages that can be shared with friends and family.

A Look at Other Ways to Comment in a Blog

I took a look at the suggested resources for discovering different ways to comment in a blog.

• Seesmic – http://www.seesmic.com- allows you to create video comments that can be uploaded to blogs using WordPress. According to their wiki you can also

Record one or more Seesmic video’s to a post.

Accept authenticated or anonymous video comments.

Moderate video comments exactly like text comments.

• Snapvine – http://www.snapvine.com – Using the snapvine Voice Player, users are able to safely communicate, in their own voices, with their online community with snapvine’s easy-to-use products that work on any cell phone, with any carrier.

Thoughts on Multimedia Commenting

I filed these under the Reflections & Revelations for Day 26
Continue reading Exploring Other Ways to Comment for Day 26…

What are Your Favorite Online Educational Resources? / Day 14 Ruminations becomes the Readers’ Blog

The Challenge for today, Day 14, is to turn the Ruminations Blog over to my readers, so I am opening the blog up to readers and fellow educators for comments on the following question:

What are your favorite online educational resources?

What I am looking for are the resources that you routinely share with colleagues that help make their teaching easier, using computers easier or more cheaply, like on an adjunct professors budget.

My Favorite Online Educational Resources

I created my own list of Online Educational Resources that I’ve posted on the site as a permanent page.

I am created a permanent page of my favorite Web 2.0 resources (which will be embellished based on answers to this question).

With a bit of luck, I might be able to compile a very useful list of online resources for other online educators.

Continue reading What are Your Favorite Online Educational Resources? / Day 14 Ruminations becomes the Readers’ Blog…

Web 1.0 vs. Web 2.0 / Day 13 Write a Post Using Comments

The challenge for today was to write a blog post using a comment that someone had left on the Ruminations blog.

Michele Martin left this comment on my Ruminations Blog Audit / Day 10: Audit Comments on Your Own Blog

I agree with Sue that it might be about not knowing that they can comment or how to comment. It may also be, as you point out, that they are coming primarily for one-way communication and information, which is fine. I think it becomes an issue if you WANT more comments and aren’t getting them–if you’re trying to create community through comments and it’s not happening. But some blogs aren’t about the comments, and that’s fine, too.

Michele’s comment helped me to think about the differences in the way that I have been used to creating webpages as a one-way communication method and how much this older style (Web 1.0) differs from the newer blogging and social networking style (Web 2.0).

Web 1.0 vs. Web 2.0

This comparison topic is one that emerged from several comments posted in the blog and my own search as a person very familiar with Web 1.0, to try and make sense of the new Web 2.0. Trying to figure out the differences between the two is something that I’ve been meaning to do for a while.

Web 2.0 Defined

The main definition for Web 2.0 comes from Tim O’Reilly (who coined the phrase)

Web 2.0 is the business revolution in the computer industry caused by the move to the Internet as the platform.

Comparison in Images

Although a bit busy, these two images from JW Schmidt help to distinguish the differences between Web 1.0 and Web 2.0 visually. Seeing these two images really helped put things into perspective for me.

Web 1.0

JW Schmidt. June 2007. Web 1.0 Elements. Wikiversity. GNU Free Documentation License.

Web 2.0

JW Schmidt. June 2007. Web 2.0 Elements. Wikiversity. GNU Free Documentation License.

O’Reilly’s Comparison

O’Reilly formulated their sense of Web 2.0 by creating a list of examples:

More Comparisons Web 1.0 vs. Web 2.0

More comparisons between Web 1.0 and Web 2.0 have been drawn by many other bloggers. These are just some of the examples that were given.

To help me think about the differences I grouped the comparisons into three categories: using the web, computers and the web and e-Commerce.

Using the Web

• Web 1.0 was about reading, Web 2.0 is about writing
• Web 1.0 was about HTML, Web 2.0 is about XML
• Web 1.0 was about home pages, Web 2.0 is about blogs
• Web 1.0 was about lectures, Web 2.0 is about conversation
• Web 1.0 was about web forms, Web 2.0 is about web applications
• Web 1.0 was about owning, Web 2.0 is about sharing
• Web 1.0 was about Netscape, Web 2.0 is about Google
• Web 1.0 was about portals, Web 2.0 is about RSS
• Web 1.0 was about taxonomy, Web 2.0 is about tags

Computers and the Web

• Web 1.0 was about wires, Web 2.0 is about wireless
• Web 1.0 was about dial-up, Web 2.0 is about broadband
• Web 1.0 was about hardware costs, Web 2.0 is about bandwidth costs

eCommerce = Services, Companies and the Web

• Web 1.0 was about services sold over the web, Web 2.0 is about web services
• Web 1.0 was about client-server, Web 2.0 is about peer to peer
• Web 1.0 was about advertising, Web 2.0 is about word of mouth
• Web 1.0 was about companies, Web 2.0 is about communities
• Web 1.0 was about IPOs, Web 2.0 is about trade sales

Sources Used:

O’Reilly T. September 30, 2005. What Is Web 2.0 Design Patterns and Business Models for the Next Generation of Software.

Joe Drumgoole. May 29th, 2006. Web 2.0 vs Web 1.0. Copacetic.

Darren Barefoot. May 29th, 2006. Web 1.0 vs. Web 2.0. Darren Barefoot.

Continue reading Web 1.0 vs. Web 2.0 / Day 13 Write a Post Using Comments…

Reasons *Not* to Become a Doctor / Day 8 Comment on a Blog Outside Your Niche

Last semester I had one of my college students ask me if I was “the physician who gave up medicine to raise her children.” At first I thought this was an interesting rumor going around about me, spread by the students and then realized in many aspects it is true.

True my *clinical* medical career has been on hiatus since the birth and NICU admission of my youngest 6 years ago for a variety of reasons, but I still consider myself sharing my medical knowledge through teaching.

An article in Forbes this week by Tara Weiss on “Reasons Not to Become a Doctor” confirmed as my husband emailed me, that I was ahead of my time. Many of the reasons she cited for reasons not to become a doctor were also reasons that I’d come up with for taking a hiatus from practice.

• Few opportunities for *predictable* part-time work. Before I had my daughters I worked in a variety of part-time clinical settings, often with erratic schedules . After having them, I knew I needed a more predictable schedule. I’ve seen a lot of women physicians having to choose between career and family after having children, because people don’t want “part-time physicians.”
  
• Lack of autonomy. I found it extremely frustrating that my day was determined by a medical assistant with limited education scheduling patients for an appointment every 10 – 15 minutes, during which time we’d have to review the chart, see the patient, write any prescriptions and chart the visit. This severely limits the amount of time physicians can spend educating patients about health.
• Loss of respect for the profession. Once upon a time, physicians were the resource people visited to gain medical knowledge. Now with the Internet, physicians have become the ‘gate keepers’ patients must pass through on their way for further services.
  
• Threats of lawsuits. Getting sued by a patient is a major concern. I don’t know of too many professions who go to work daily with the threat of a lawsuit hanging over their every move.
• Hefty Paychecks are a thing of the past. I have not seen any appreciable change in physicians salaries that I’ve seen in the last > 10 years, despite an increasing cost of living and rise in student loans. Even with a dual professional income my husband (a Senior Web Developer) and I could not have bought a home in the Bay Area or the East Bay Area.
• Low reimbursement for services. Medicine, particularly primary care, seems to be one of the few places where people go in for services and still do not feel that they need to pay the entire bill. The plumber or the car mechanic would not take partial payment on services that they provided.
• Increasing student loans. There is a future of looming medical-school debt, which is higher than ever. I was lucky to *only* be $50,000 in direct medical school debt which I worked to get paid off within 10 years of graduating. Getting my loans paid off has allowed me the luxury of working part-time, because the pressure of the hefty monthly loan check is no longer there.

I think it is a sad state of the medical profession if 57% of 1,175 doctors questioned in a 2007 survey would not recommend the field to their children. Even though my daughters talk about medicine, I would not recommend becoming a physician to them as a profession *unless* there are drastic changes in the field.

To pursue medicine, you put your life on hold for > 10 years with the promise that you’ll get out with a respected job with decent pay; this no longer seems to be the case. I’ve spent time over the past 10 years educating people about the reality for doctors today.

Making More of an Impact as a Teacher

When I took a hiatus from clinical practice to raise my daughters in their early years, I hadn’t thought about what I might be able to do with my medical degree. I was invited to interview to teach Nutrition at our local college. I was hired for the position and am now teaching the 17th class of College Nutrition.

The great thing for me about teaching is that I feel I am still able to do one of the things I liked best about patient care–health education. I am able to teach students how to make good healthy choices for life and stay healthy, instead of taking care of people who have chronic diseases.

By teaching college Nutrition & Wellness, I still able sharing my medical knowledge and experiences. Teaching is my paid community service.
Continue reading Reasons *Not* to Become a Doctor / Day 8 Comment on a Blog Outside Your Niche…