Speaker: Dr Rebecca Ferguson, IET, The Open University

The pivot online in the past year has opened up a wealth of opportunities. Conferences are accessible at low cost without travel. Friends, relations and work colleagues are seasoned online travellers, willing to try out YouTube gym sessions, Zoomed parish council meetings, and live-streamed performances. On the other hand, we’ve all experienced back-to-back online meetings, Teams fatigue, and feelings of disengagement at online events.

CALRG is well placed to investigate different options and has begun to do so, exploring options for online conferences through talks, research and practice. In this week’s CALRG session, Rebecca Ferguson will introduce ideas about how to make online spaces and events more inviting.

The session will be split into two parts. In the first, Rebecca will share a series of provocations about how online engagement could develop. You’re encouraged to listen while doing something you enjoy and, if possible, while doing something active. Get on the running machine, do some yoga stretches, play with the dog, eat some biscuits, start knitting a jumper (not necessarily all at once).

Part two will be a chance to rejoin the group to share ideas and experiences in breakout sessions, via Google Docs and a Padlet. Together, we’ll begin to pull together ideas for a ‘Manifesto for Online Meetings’.

If you haven’t used Padlet before and you’d like to try it out before the meeting, this is the Padlet we’ll be using

https://padlet.com/98adeutays/r61ifq5p4wxgiq9v

If Google Docs work better for you, here’s the Google Doc we’ll be using https://docs.google.com/document/d/1_KIMaxdNVCOXoTlGSpS4BWQtPkGa14TPqpgjkkvwwfI/edit?usp=sharing