Welcome to Episode 130 of the Think UDL podcast: Virtual Gathering, Real Inclusion with Cait Kirby and Liz Norell. Cait Kirby is the founding Associate Director of the Williams College Center for Teaching, where she primarily engages with faculty around exploring and celebrating teaching practices and opportunities. Cait spends her time tweeting about disability, pedagogy, and games. She enjoys knitting, reading, and making good trouble. Liz Norell is an associate director of instructional support at the Center for Excellence in Teaching and Learning at the University of Mississippi, where she supports faculty who want to improve their teaching. Liz is also dedicated to spreading greater awareness of neurodivergence in and out of the classroom, reads voraciously, and loves a good road trip.
Drs. Cait Kirby and Liz Norell were two of the organizers of the June 2024 virtual conference Making Change,Taking Space: A Call to Gather (virtually). The first time conference was organized entirely by volunteers primarily in the North American higher education space as a FREE professional development opportunity for anyone around the world who would like to participate in three days of workshops, lighting talks, and structured social gatherings. I was lucky enough to be able to attend this virtual conference and was really impressed with the thoughtful design that the organizers collectively created, so I asked Cait and Liz to join me to discuss those decisions and how it all came about. You’ll also be able to see a lot more information about this virtual gathering in the resources section of the ThinkUDL.org website for this episode and find contact information for the group as well as Cait and Liz, who are only two of the many volunteers who put together this exceptionally well-designed, inclusive, thoughtfully paced and incredibly generative space. In today’s conversation, we will discuss how and why this virtual conference came into being, how and why accessibility was baked into every design and planning choice, what lessons were learned after this inaugural and hopefully annual conference and what is on the horizon for any folks who may have missed out and want to join along in this community. Perhaps you will find some new ideas to put into practice in your spaces that will radically include your learners and/or participants, too.
Resources
Find Cait Kirby (@CaitSKirby) on X (Twitter), BlueSky, Instagram and LinkedIn
Find Liz Norell (@liznorell) on X (Twitter), BlueSky, Instagram and LinkedIn
Form to sign up for SIG/Affinity group
LinkedIn group for those who attended the conference
Want to learn more about Enneagrams?
Transcript
1:07:45
SUMMARY KEYWORDS
people, gathering, UDL, session, accessibility, conference, learning, virtual, felt, participants, accessible, design, talk, part, community, presenters, share, engaged
SPEAKERS
Lillian Nave, Liz Norell, Cait Kirby
Lillian Nave 00:02
Welcome to think UDL, the universal design for learning podcast where we hear from the people who are designing and implementing strategies with learner variability in mind. I’m your host, Lillian Nave. And I’m interested in not just what you’re teaching, learning, guiding and facilitating, but how you design and implement it and why it even matters. Welcome to Episode 130 of the think UDL podcast, virtual gathering real inclusion with Cait Kirby and Liz Norell. Cait Kirby is the founding Associate Director of the Williams College Center for Teaching, where she primarily engages with faculty around exploring and celebrating teaching practices and opportunities. Cait spends her time tweeting about disability, pedagogy and games. She enjoys knitting, reading and making good trouble. Liz Norell is an Associate Director of Instructional Support at the Center for Excellence in Teaching and Learning at the University of Mississippi, where she supports faculty who want to improve their teaching. Liz is also dedicated to spreading greater awareness of neuro divergence in and out of the classroom, reads voraciously and loves a good road trip. Doctors Cait Kirby and Liz Morel were two of the organizers of the June 2024 virtual conference called Making change comma taking space, a call to gather virtually the first time conference was organized entirely by volunteers primarily in the North American higher education space as a free professional development opportunity for anyone around the world who would like to participate in three days of workshops, lightning talks, and structured social gatherings. I was lucky enough to be able to attend this virtual conference, and was really impressed with the thoughtful design that the organizers collectively created. So I asked Cait and Liz to join me to discuss those decisions and how it all came about. You’ll also be able to see a lot more information about this virtual gathering in the resources section of the think you D l.org. website for this episode, and find contact information for the group as well as Cait and Liz, who were only two of the many volunteers who put together this exceptionally well designed, inclusive, thoughtfully paced, and incredibly generative space. In today’s conversation, we will discuss how and why this virtual conference came into being, how and why accessibility was baked into every decision and design and planning choice. And what lessons were learned after this inaugural and hopefully annual conference, and what is on the horizon for any folks who may have missed out and want to join along in this community. Perhaps you will find some new ideas to put into practice in your spaces that will radically include your learners and or participants to. And as always, thank you for listening to the think UDL podcast. Thank you to our sponsor Texthelp, a global technology company helping people all over the world to understand and to be understood. It has led the way in creating innovative technology for the workplace and education sectors, including K 12. right through to higher education for the last three decades. Discover their impact at text dot help forward slash learn more, that’s l earn m o r e. So I wanted to welcome both list RL and Cait Kirby to the think UDL podcast. Thank you both for joining me today.
Liz Norell 04:25
I’m so excited to be here.
Cait Kirby 04:27
Yeah, thank you so much. This is gonna be great.
Lillian Nave 04:31
I am so excited. I am really energized from a recent occurrence that we get to talk about today something that happened last week about a wonderful virtual conference and you guys had a big hand in it. So I wanted to start with a slightly different first question than I asked. I usually ask what makes you a different kind of learner? And anyone who wants to hear listen or else answer can listen to Episode One. 21 Because I just asked her that recently, but I’ve got her back today with Cait Kirby to talk about something a little bit different. So I want to change the question to ask what makes you a different kind of designer, or in this case designer facilitator. And I thought you might have something to tell us as we move into how you designed and facilitated this conference. So Liz, I will start with you. How would you answer that question?
Liz Norell 05:33
I thought about this a lot. And I was glad to get to think about it in advance. I think that what makes me different as a facilitator, or Oh, I think you called it a learning party organizer, which I love, okay, is that I’m really focused, perhaps to the point of obsession of a holding what I have planned pretty lightly, when I go into a room, together with people for something, whether that be students, faculty, friends, I have a plan. But I am happy to abandon that plan if there’s something else that needs to be discussed. So I remember when I was a student, a lot of my friends would say, like, oh, we could really, like distract him. If we ask him a question about this, or, you know, you can always derail this professor, if you, you know, bring up this or talk about this, I had a third grade teacher who was obsessed with daffodils. So we could talk about daffodils, right. And I always saw that as like somehow getting off the hook for the day. But now as a teacher and a facilitator, I actually really love it when people try to get me off track, because it’s often for a reason. And that reason is often emergent and interesting, in a way that I find to be really productive. So I’ll just end by saying that if you know anything about the Enneagram, it may be helpful to know that I’m in Enneagram. Two and going with what other people want to do that day is a very Enneagram two thing to say.
Lillian Nave 07:16
Okay, thank you very much. And I too have many stories like that I could we could always get our Spanish teacher to go off topic if we just asked her about her family. And then I was like, great, no, no verb tenses. Today, we thought, Cait, how would you answer that question?
07:36
I love this question. And I love how different Liz and I are going to answer this, because I’m a planner that has a backup plan to the backup plan. And maybe an alternative plan just in case like I am all about every every layer and a level of planning. And part of that is because I’m chronically ill. And the way that that shows up in my work and life is I typically kind of front load all of the work so that I can be sure that I can get the work done when I’m I’m feeling better. And then that gives me the time and the flexibility to rest when I need to rest. And I think that that kind of helped in our planning of this. Because when everyone had life kind of get in the way, during that planning process, we had already done a lot of that kind of like, like like that front loading and kind of getting the planning out of the way. But I also just want to add because Liz brought up Enneagram is that I’m an Enneagram eight. And I think my eight tennis means that I’m always going to stick it to the man, I’m always going to be looking to lift up those with the least power. And I’m always going to stick my neck out even when it’s at great personal risk or cost. And that really filters into how I design and facilitate all of my learning parties. But especially this gathering in which that was kinda that kind of ended up becoming a core theme of it by by the end of it. Nice.
Lillian Nave 09:10
Well, clearly, we’re going to have to have a link to enneagrams on today’s resources. So I’ve got that in my notes. So everybody could now figure out if they’re more of a two or more of an eight or somewhere in between or one of those one through nine. And I think that’s very good about reflection. Another core tenet of Universal Design for Learning is that reflective piece we have to know ourselves pretty much to know how we’re going to do so. So yeah, two very different answers on this. And I can definitely see how those two things lead together to make this amazing gathering conference come together. And so like why are we here today? What what are we going to talk about it’s I wanted to talk about this what happened in the final week of June of this year in 2020, for you and a larger group of facilitators of designers brought together a three day accessible by design, fully virtual and yeah, free series of workshops and talks. And I was very happy to be able to go, not go be, I guess, because it was all virtual. So to be in my house and, and work from home and participate. And I really enjoyed my time in this conference. And I felt such a profound sense of care. For the participants, including me through the design of the program, like I could definitely tell all of this was designed differently, and very meticulously, so I appreciated things like the timing of things, including how well everything was laid out with intentional rakes, well, structured opportunities, those sorts of things to get to know other participants. So I love an in person conference for the opportunity to get to know the other people that do what I do, and share ideas and maybe collaborate. And in a virtual or hybrid conference, if you’re not there. I’ve also found that a bit more difficult to make those connections, and you guys somehow took care of that, like you fix that. So also those intentional reflecting as a group, we could talk about this a lot. So as a UDL person, there were so many principles that I saw put into place that I wanted to talk to you both. So how did this all come about? And, Cait, I’m gonna start with you on this one.
11:48
Well, thank you, it’s great to hear that you felt that care, because we spent so much time and effort in in in really imbuing the entire planning process and all of our sessions with care. So it’s great to hear that that resonated. So I guess I’m going to talk a little bit about kind of how the gathering came to be. And I did talk about this at length in my opening session remarks, which you can find on YouTube. And if we can, we can link to that in the resources. But I want to just kind of frame it with the fact that essentially, when everyone was limited in their ability to travel, due to the COVID-19, pen GemEx. So we’re talking about 2020, and many parts of 2021. So much access was made available to the masses, there were virtual conferences and professional development opportunities, which became the the norm. But the COVID-19 pandemic is still ongoing. In fact, right now in July 2024. There’s a spike in cases, I think, kind of across the globe right now, even though it’s summertime in the US. And so that’s pretty abnormal. But just because many people have decided that they want to go back to normal, that kind of virtual access has been revoked. And so this is really exclusionary to those of us again, and chronically ill. And so those of us who have health issues that make it impossible to go to these large, unmasked events, this is exclusionary, this also highlighted the lack of access that has always existed for so many of our colleagues, including new parents, caregivers for aging, or ill family members, instructors, and educational developers of under resourced institutions, individuals who live in countries besides the US who rely on a visa to visit for short trips, and so many other situations. And so this virtual gathering was really created as a way to intentionally create access for people who have been and continue to be excluded from our fields, organizations and conferences. And this gathering prioritized accessibility and community, which we’ll talk about more later when we share about our values. But that’s kind of the context in which the gathering came to be. And
Liz Norell 14:25
I just want to build on what Keita said, but talking about the fact that I’m not a good person to invite to a meeting, if you want to take a careful and considered and long term approach to an event because of the people that I work with regularly know that I will send an email to just about anyone and I will set up a meeting at a moment’s notice. I’m like, let’s just do it. Right. I want to fail fast and learn from it and do better next time. And so like I you know, when I when we first started talking about fully virtual fully accessible gatherings, there were many people and I think this is just He’s kind of like a knee jerk reaction in higher ed to say, Well, I mean, we tried that one seven years ago, and it didn’t work out so well, or I don’t know, I don’t. I don’t I don’t think we could do that. And so, you know, we heard from multiple people that there was just no way to have a virtual gathering in this, like, calendar year. And we said, that’s not good enough. And we’re pretty sure we can. It’s not like it’s hard to schedule zoom meetings, or to set up a free Google website. So like, let’s try. Let’s see. And it turned out that it could be done. Yeah.
Cait Kirby 15:39
And there was a great comment that that happened, that I want to share about that. But to contextualize, I have this print on my bookshelf behind me that says what like it’s hard, which is a line from the movie Legally Blonde, when Elle Woods gets into Harvard Law. And her ex boyfriend is surprised that she got accepted, because he fully underestimated her capability, that I actually referenced this print in my opening session kind of on a whim. And at the end of the first day, we were in one of these Capstone sessions reflecting. And a participant said something along the lines of this seems like a ton of work to organize a gathering like this, but it doesn’t actually seem that hard. And he was being very respectful and kind, but he was recognizing that it didn’t seem like it was difficult to do this. And in the chat, many participants wrote back what like it’s hard. And that quote, sort of became the second theme of the gathering, because the organizers had been so underestimated. And again, as as Liz commented, we had been told that it just wasn’t possible. But like Elle we did, it was possible. And we had 400 requests to join the gathering. And that’s just as of the moment that we’re recording. Because even though the event has ended, people are still wanting to learn from what what we built together. And there are more requests coming in, because they missed out on the live sessions, but the recordings are available.
Lillian Nave 17:21
Yeah, that’s what I love about this, that it’s so accessible, we’re going to get into that, oh, my goodness. And the ability to go back like I am notorious for having more than 200 tabs open, because I have tabs in groups. Yeah. Liz is also giving me the hand signal of the chronically open tabs. And so I still have around a dozen 15 tabs open from from last week. And I thought, I know I’ve got to just I need to go and look at the recordings again, because I missed part of Josh either gave a session and I missed the first part where it said, Here’s my story. I was like, Oh, I that’s totally I wanted to see that part on the can go back. So I really appreciate that. That’s all part of that accessibility and the ability to participate when you have the time to participate, which of course I love. So yeah, so let’s talk a little bit now about some first impressions about this gathering. And I was amazed, I was like that person. In the comments that said, this seems like a lot of work. And you did it so quickly. It usually takes, I mean, I guess I’m under the mistaken impression that it takes over a year for an academic type of conference to be put together. And this was meticulously designed. And I’m not going to say thrown together because it didn’t at all feel thrown together the way you might feel like in a chaotic environment. It’s not at all it was meticulously designed and delivered, seemingly without a hitch in its execution. But that’s probably because a lot of that hard work was done in the background. And it makes me think about that, to me that the virtual gathering was like a show that you might go to see where a theatre production right where there’s so much that has to be done with set design with creating the background with the lighting with the makeup with the costume changes all of those unseen parts of the show. And we don’t want to notice that like you’ll definitely notice if somebody’s costume falls apart, right or you’ll definitely notice when the fairy godmother isn’t attached properly to the guide wired she falls with a thud down to the to the stage. But we all of those things are done so that the actors can shine and you want to remember those performances. And that’s what I felt like here is that there were there were no thuds The actual learning what’s the big main character was the big actor and we all could just enjoy that part. Because and like enjoy the performances even though it wasn’t a performance, but we could enjoy the learning the the workshops and the lightning talks. And that because none of that other stuff took away from it the the oh, I can’t hear what somebody’s not using a microphone, or I can’t get into the session, where is it? How do I get all of those things? So anyway, that’s to me was this like, really well orchestrated thing? So what, what am I missing here? And what did you think about that was, you didn’t put on a show, but you’ve put on a show for everybody. That’s what that was. So Cait, what do you think?
Cait Kirby 20:50
Yeah, I really appreciate that.
Lillian Nave 20:53
I love that
Cait Kirby 20:54
this analogy here. And I think, not to like toot our own horns or anything, there wasn’t even a single broken link. Like it just everything happened. And I sort of joked that that’s what happens when you get enough neurodivergent people together into a room, it just, there’s just that attention to detail and commitment and hyper focus that happens that I think we got to sort of like leverage all of our hyper focus skills on that. But I think my my big takeaways were that I felt a sense of community and gratitude that I haven’t felt at other gatherings and conferences I what I loved about it was that people were sharing how impactful a session was openly in the chat during the session. And so people were able to get that sort of instant feedback and community. But there was also so much vulnerability that participants and presenters really brought their whole selves to the sessions. And they were so generous with their engagement. But at the same time, participants prioritize their own well being like they turned off cameras, or they ate during sessions, which was great to be able to notice, I didn’t get a sense that people felt like they had to show up in any particular way. And it felt so community driven, and like we were all there together to do the hard and, and fun work that we were called there to do. And so it was, it was really a community effort. And we were able to accomplish it because people showed up and showed out in really meaningful ways.
Liz Norell 22:41
So I appreciate also lily in your description of your experience as a participant, as Cait said, because that’s exactly what we were hoping for, that people would feel welcomed and cared for. And like people had taken the time to anticipate the different ways that people might show up, and caters absolutely right. When you get this many neurodivergent people in a room, virtual or physical. Like, we’re going to anticipate a lot of things that I didn’t know, at the beginning, Cait said that she likes to have plans and backup plans and backup backup plans. And I do too, I’m just more willing, perhaps than Cait is to throw them all out the window. Because I think that just comes from my experience of anxiety and moving through the world with anxiety. But there were so many people who had a small role to play here. I think when we sent out a call for volunteers, we got like 40 people who said, you know, I would love to be a part of this in some small way, like, what can I do that’s small. And then there were, you know, a smaller number of people who did a lot of work. But every time we were going to make a decision, we had a conversation about like, Who might that exclude? How might that be messaging something that’s not in alignment with the values that we’ve articulated. And so I think the reason that it went so well and that there were no solids, like no fairy godmothers were harmed in the making of this gathering, is because we all continually push each other. Okay, what are the implications of that decision? Those conversations are the kinds of things that will often take place over months, when planning one of those like, you know, year to plan academic conferences, we were just doing it in discord in the evenings and on the weekends. You know, while we were doing laundry and making dinner and chasing wasps out of our house, right, like those are the that’s that’s how we planned it. And it so then to see it come to fruition. As Cait has said it was just like an incredible sense of community and it was palpable every single time that one of these sessions started. I was just bowled over by the joy that people brought into that virtual space. and the grace that they were willing to extend to each other, the creative ways, really creative ways, if those facilitators use the affordances of the virtual platform, and designed multiple ways for people to engage, so, you know, we’re gonna go into breakout rooms, you can go or you can stay, you can go and just listen, you can go and talk, you can go and chat, or you can do none of the above. And that’s okay, just kind of like setting those expectations was really incredible. And I think that some of the sessions that we went to, I felt like I made a deeper connection with more people than I have ever made at one of the many in person conferences I’ve been to. And that, to me was just overwhelmingly positive and showed me that virtual gatherings can work really well, even better than in person, because everybody can be engaged exactly at the level that they want to be engaged at, in a particular moment. So yeah, I echo everything Cait said, and just, I’m still like getting welled up with gratitude and emotion about how well this went and how powerful it was, I
Lillian Nave 26:21
must say, agreed on that. The you mentioned, a, there are some ways that a virtual conference or a virtual space is more appropriate for can making connections, honestly, and can be more flexible, absolutely can be so much more flexible, with, like, you mentioned, the chat, people could have a chat while that was going on, and the could really be creating community. Whereas if you’re all in one room, maybe you can see each other’s faces. But you’re not having that kind of conversation, like a side conversation. But it’s it was a very much a building up kind of side conversation, oh, I identify with that, Oh, I totally was thinking that too, or you that happens to you, that happens to me, I’m totally the same way, you know, those sorts of connections that are really made explicit, and are being shown. And we can like really see that happening, rather than just everybody clapping together, or something that you all happen to be in the same room, and you’re in the same place that used to be, like all you needed, that’s like a being at a concert. But this really allowed for those in multiple ways. And so explicitly, Liz, when you mentioned, the ways that the facilitators really helped this, like Janae, Cohen had given a session, shout out to her with, you could kind of indicate if you wanted to just sort of lurk, and be like, hey, I want to make a connection, I’m ready to work on a project with somebody, I really want to jump in with two feet, or I am here to listen and lurk or, you know, I’m just here to find out, you know, to learn those sorts of things. Whereas it’s not, it is not a one size fits all. It’s not a one way thing, where in a workshop, now turn to your partner, and I want you to do this three, these two things, these three things. Now, it’s like, well, you could do this you can you just engaged in the way you want to.
Liz Norell 28:38
Yeah, so one of the things that I want to pull on, Lillian, that you said, and I haven’t thought about this until you just said it is that in an in a kind of in person. We’re sitting in a conference room and a roundtable together, side conversations annoying me so much. Because I can’t focus on what the speakers are saying because of this background noise. Yeah. In a virtual setting. I love the side conversations, because it feels generative to me. Yes. And like if I’m giving a talk, and I’m in person, and people are talking, I get very annoyed, like, no, no, no, you’re like, you’re making it harder for me to think. But when I’m giving a talk or facilitating a session, virtually, I love it when people are in the chat, because it gives me some energy. And it also might inspire me to go like I was saying at the beginning like in a different direction because of how people are showing up. And so I think you’re absolutely right, that the side conversations are a benefit. And not just an incidental.
Lillian Nave 29:38
Yeah, there’s just so many parts of that allow for multiple ways of participating Hello, Universal Design for Learning multiple ways to to be engaged, show your engagement show and participate. It was really great. And also I was just thinking about how many people could participate that normally wouldn’t like, if I had kids coming in and out, or you know, and could also I know, hey, I need to somebody needed to feed a young child, I’m gonna take my camera off, you know, I need, I’m still listening. But I need to, you know, attend to something at home or I need to, you know, I’m going to be in another country at the time, that sort of thing. So, and the fact that you can go back to the recording, you’ve got usually everything had a knot. Usually it did it had the slides you could go to, you could go check it out. So like, Oh, I missed that last slide. And if you’re in the conference room, you’re like, Oh, what was that? I, you know, you can’t go back in time. But if you’ve got that right there, again, amazing. So we’ve already danced around this, we’re going to just focus on it now accessibility by design. That is, seems like the major foundation here. So I know you’ve prioritized the whole gathering prioritize accessibility first. And as Michael McCurry McCreary who said, on LinkedIn, and I’m going to pull a quote here, that the gather for change 24, and I’ll put that hashtag also on our resources, hashtag gather for the number four, change to four, conference on making change taking space was radically accessible, and quote, the most inclusive conference I’ve attended. And you, though, have said right afterwards, you’ve said, But wait, we want to make it even more accessible in the future. So it’s, first of all, it’s amazing what can happen when you do treat accessibility as a core value, rather than checking a list of checkpoints or guidelines? And that you kind of make other people do it? Did you make those documents accessible? Did you do that? And, you know, assign it to a committee. So tell me about that. What kinds of things did you do to prioritize accessibility? And I don’t know, we’ll start with Liz on this one.
Liz Norell 32:12
So I’m really glad that we’re getting a chance to introduce Michael into this conversation, because Michael is an incredible resource around all things accessibility. And really, you know, I think made the whole conference better, I am just so grateful for his help. And that post on LinkedIn, I thought was really important, because it called attention to the fact that even though we did talk a lot about how to make it accessible, once the plane was flying, we could see that there were places to make it even more efficient, right? Even more aerodynamic, I guess, in this metaphor. And so we, we did what we could, and we’ll do better next time. So I’m just going to talk about the stuff that happened before the conference started. And Cait will tell you about all the things that happen once we got going. But as we were planning this, the first thing we did was articulate what are the core values of what we’re going to do with this gathering? Why are we here? And what is it that we hope to accomplish, and then we created a set of community commitments, that again, a very large number of people looked at and commented on and gave feedback on. And we shared that before anybody submitted a proposal before anybody registered so that they could see like, these are the things that matter most to us. When we put together the proposal process, we began with the assumption that we would accept every or almost every proposal, because we wanted to make sure that people had an opportunity. The whole point here was to invite people who have felt excluded from the sort of larger national in person gatherings. And so, you know, we committed to giving substantial and supportive feedback on every proposal. In the proposal requirements, we asked people who wanted to come and present or share to reflect on the values of the gathering, but we made the form the actual proposal, quite short. Which, if you’ve made proposals to other conferences, you know, they’re often quite long. So we we tried to make this not onerous as an accessibility concern. We asked everyone when they submitted a proposal, and when they registered for the gathering, what would make this most accessible for you? What kinds of things and we got a wide range of answers from things like frequent breaks to don’t expect me to have my cameras on? Obviously, captions, having materials available before the conference was something that multiple people said and that’s why we asked presenters to do that. And we shared with all of the presenters, what people wrote on the registration forms about what kinds of policies or strategies or practices would make their sessions is more accessible, right? I’ve never had that done, as a presenter had the conference tell me this is what people said they need in order to be included in this, we provided we did accept every proposal. Some of them, we gave some, you know, very supportive feedback, some we, I mean was always supportive. But on some, we’re like, you proposed a 10 minute lightning talk, you’ve got enough material here for an hour, we can make this a one hour workshop, or you can trim it down to make it attendant, you know, just trying to set you up for success here, we can go either way, what’s going to work best for you, we created a presenters guide about how to do accessible presentations. And again, lots of people looked at that, and shared that with presenters. And then the last thing I’ll talk about is that the Google site that we used, it’s just a free Google site, it did not have a great custom domain, it was just like a link that you clicked on an email. So didn’t need to be but Michael was especially helpful at making sure that that was formatted in a way that people who were using screen readers or needed to in you know, enlarge the, I want to just say in bigger Fie, enlarge the font size, that it would still look and work well. He also checked in on mobile devices. So you know, all of those things that we think of when we think about accessibility, but again, as Cait said, before, starting from the very beginning, what do we need to build in so that everyone feels like they have what they need to get the most out of this gathering? And now, let Cait talk about what we did, once we got going with the gathering. Yeah,
Cait Kirby 36:33
there, there was so much that went into again, that planning and preparation and and all of that, which I think is what then made it Yeah, kind of easy once we were there, because so many of the accessibility needs were already kind of covered. But so we had this kind of opening session to set the stage and kind of the tone. And also to address some of those community norms. We also were very explicit in how to navigate the gathering, which I think is something I’ve experienced in other virtual conference experiences that they give you this weird app and you don’t know how to do it, and you don’t know where anything is. And you have to download it. And it requires, like a login, and everything. And we we made basically our own platform in Google Drive. And we just explained kind of, as you said earlier, every every folder had the notes and the slides. And so we walked through that in that opening session that way. And then that way, it’s kind of available and accessible in how to and navigate all of it. But we also talked a little bit about the norms of having people give their own brief like visual descriptions, and how to make it because so many people were not we’re not at their computers, they weren’t looking at this greens that this became a UDL measure, again, that people who just weren’t there were were that weren’t physically at their computer, we’re still able to know who was speaking or to get a kind of just go eruption. We had clear and repeated invitations to participate in ways that that felt authentic and supportive. And part of that was as, as Liz highlighted earlier, there was no expectation of breakout group per dissipation or cameras being on and I loved a couple of presenters even highlighted. And let’s not call out the people whose cameras are off, let’s not stigmatize let’s not make any big deal about people whose cameras were off. And I loved it. And I think that maybe that’ll be one of our lessons that we learned is that even highlighting the way that we should engage around that that is important. As Liz highlighted, we shared as many materials ahead of time as we could. And so most I think pretty much every presenter shared their their slides, at least while they were presenting, I think some people shared them three, four or five days in advance whenever we got their their, their their folders available to them. And those will be available in perpetuity, those will just exist. And as part of those, we had these community, no catchers, and I love this. I think this was loses framing of them as note catchers. But it was a place that as people were writing things in the chat, we could just kind of drop them in there, as people were sharing resources, we could drop them in there. And there was often one to maybe 10 people who were currently taking notes about what the presenter was, was sharing. And these are just Google Docs that were editable by anyone. So again, those are going to live in perpetuity. And at the top of them, we had a little public publicity, no. So it was very clear if you could share any thing about these sessions or not. And so it didn’t require that anybody had to ask about them, it made it very clear from the get go, what those materials and resources, what the shareability of those was. And I just want to add a note that we had these community and no catchers available. And unfortunately, I’m, we had a few presenters who had to cancel because they had emergency is. And we were able to really quickly pivot from those being a note catchers about their presentation to those being Community Care catchers. And so we were able to invite other participants and presenters to share our well wishes and their and their good thoughts with the presenters during their time of need or hardship or emergency. And my understanding is that they were very well received those who have had a chance to receive that care. And that was really from that kind of community care ethos that we had, as one of our record of values, we are just about to make available to the participants, the recordings of these sessions, and those will be on privated on on searchable YouTube links. And so only the those who have access will have access, but you can get access by having registered for the conference in the gathering us. So it’s a pretty open resource for those who opted into having their recordings available. And so those are the things that we did kind of while we were in the sessions, while we were there, really trying to promote that accessibility, both in the present and going ahead in the future as well with all of those resources. That
Lillian Nave 42:32
is a incredibly accessible conference. That was a you know, my initial love for it, I think, was just seeing all of the designed elements. And I, I know I’ve kind of been in this work for a while. So maybe that’s what it was when I could go in and I could see Whoa, whoa, this is all really thought out. And could see how much of that design had been over thought not over thought just thought of in many, many ways. So that it was smooth, it was just so smooth, like so that, like how disrupting can it be if three and I can think of three of the folks that had to cancel because of like crazy life events, something. And so three of them couldn’t make it. And immediately we’re pivoting into what we’re going to use that time we’re flexible. We’re pulling a listener out here, I’m like, let’s just try something new. And we’re so easily able to use that time constructively and provide like all these people are caring for them. Oh, I hope everything goes well. We’re sorry to miss you. That that was already there. Just that accessibility made it I think so flexible, right for every user, for every participant for the for the facilitators, it was just well designed that way. So thanks to Michael, as you mentioned, Michael McCreary, for doing that, and all of the other fantastic organizers. So I know you’re already making conversations about how to have it more accessible. But what other lessons did you learn? Do you think after this, Liz, would you like to start with that one?
Liz Norell 44:24
Yeah. I want to start by saying I did not come up with the phrase no captcha, but I stole it from somebody else who I can’t remember now. So I just don’t want to claim credit for something that was not mine. And I’m sorry, I can’t attribute it. But I also don’t want to claim credit for what I’m about to say, which is the cursor parking lot and shared Google Documents has been a game changer. And so many people at the gathering commented, you know, so if we if we have 40 people go to a Google document at the same time, and we’re all you know, anonymous excellent and anonymous dolphins, then the cursors are just kind of everywhere. And it’s hard to know, like, Where can I start typing without screwing someone else up. And so just inventing this idea of a cursor parking lot, which is just a sentence that says, park your cursor here, when you’re not typing, everybody can put their cursor there. And it just makes it so much more accessible. And multiple people at the gathering commented like, this is a revelation. So that was exciting. I think as the gathering was unfolding, a lot of us felt like the 90 minute sessions were probably just a touch too long. And that probably 60 to 75 minutes is about as long as they needed to be. We definitely needed more breaks, even though we built in a 15 minute break, basically, between every session and 130 minute break about the midpoint of each day. I personally felt like that was not enough. And that was probably because I was running from one team to another to, you know, host them. But I do think that a few more breaks. And that honestly, we needed shorter days, even if that means having more of them. So the first day we went from 11 to I think 630. That was a very challenging day. And we designed it so that the days got shorter as we moved through the three day gathering. So the last day was 11 to I think 430. But I think we needed probably about four or five hours most each day with some breaks. So you know, those are the things that kind of logistically, we thought were important to keep in mind for future kinds of things. And, Cait, I think you’re going to talk about less logistics and more about ethos. Yeah,
Cait Kirby 46:40
yeah, I think all of those are, are great logistical aspects. And I think, yeah, maybe I got like gooey gooey with it, where I was really thinking about conferences, and gatherings and get togethers are really about the people. And making it as easy as possible for people with all kinds of needs and preferences to be in space together is the priority. I’m really interested in continuing to ask and listen to find out what works better for our people to connect. I think one of the cool things about the Capstone sessions was that there was an opportunity for people to share out when they felt seen or connected, or like they were in community. And there was also a space for them to say this is when I didn’t feel seen. And I think I mean, I haven’t gotten back to look again. But there was only one real example of that, that people wrote. And it was when they were talking about a visual disk corruption. And so earlier, I talked about how I modelled that in the opening session to kind of give people an example of that, and the importance of that for visually impaired folks. And also just people who are not looking at the computer right now. And I think this is a really great example of access friction, that this is a really useful tool for people who aren’t looking or unable to see visually that presenter, but there was a comment that it made people feel really dysphoric or really uncomfortable trying to find what the right words were to describe their bodies or themselves or the way that they’re perceived. And so I think this is an example of where even even modeling, maybe that one example wasn’t enough, and that maybe we need to have a little bit more of a nuanced conversation about what are the options so that this doesn’t do harm to you while you’re trying to be helpful and inclusive to someone else. And so I think it’s going to be important for us to really dig into the ways in which access friction occurs and how we might provide better support because I never want for people to feel uncomfortable at to put their own comfort, at risk to try to include someone else and how can we balance and how can we provide the support around that? And so I think that really just requires us to ask and really give space for people to answer and then sit with and and listen to that because I think often organizations don’t want to hear that critique because it’s harmful. Like it’s, it feels bad to know that you did harm and I think we need to sit with the fact that maybe some people felt uncomfortable, and how can we prevent that or how can we mitigate that next time if we do this again next time. I
Lillian Nave 49:51
love the way you all have, like thoughtfully approached, of course, the feedback So you thoughtfully and meticulously designed everything. And here you are also really thinking carefully about how I think, maybe not opposite forces, but disparate forces may Yeah, may be working in that same space. And we are dealing with lots of humans and there’s in humans bring difference and change. And, and we are trying to do our best. And you really done the really the best I’ve seen in a virtual conference. And that’s what I’m, yeah, super excited about. And want other people to know, because it is it’s all in the design. And in that not just accessibility, but in the values that you talked about in in, in a lot of the feedback. These are all UDL principles about really engaging folks and being authentic and giving multiple ways for this to happen. So instead of just looking at UDL in a classroom, I really appreciate this UDL applied to the design of a large gathering. I mean, it was a large scale thing. There were lots of us there every day. So okay, so now you’re already taking in feedback, you’re thinking about what’s going to be better or change for the next time. Wait, is there a next time? Is this an annual thing? Now? What? I didn’t know that, but what other projects? Are you thinking you might take on with this cake? Do you want to start off with this one?
Cait Kirby 51:33
Yeah, yeah, thank you. Well, yes, I mean, I was so excited when someone registered for the gathering, and already noted how they want to participate more in the planning for the gathering next year. And that sort of took me by surprise that people were already in for a next year when we hadn’t even completed this year’s gathering yet. But I think it just goes to show how excited people are to get together and connect with smart, capable, thoughtful colleagues in accessible ways. And I think maybe that accessible ways is the part that we’ve been been missing out on a lot. I would love to continue connecting with colleagues and community driven ways that center really knowing each other meaningfully and deeply. There were a lot of different ideas thrown around, including a reading group slash book club and a writing group and other ways for folks to connect. Going forward, we’ve already shouted out Janae Cohen, but she created this amazing participant directory. And it was incredible to watch, it grew. It was a spreadsheet where each row was a different participant. And each column was a different piece of information or way to connect. And so I expected for it to grow vertically over time, right that there would be more participants. But it also grew horizontally, like there were more activities that just kept getting added over time. And that that was just amazing. And so I really want to prioritize maintaining that connection, whatever ways that we can. I also just want to go back to how Liz was talking about our preparation and our planning. This planning of this gathering was so not stressful. Like, as as, as Liz mentioned earlier, we were planning on this app called discord. But there was no discord between any of us. Really, many helpers made light work. But it was also a really easy generative work, when we met, we used it for whatever we needed. At the time. There were times when it was like a synchronous planning session where we were having conversations. There were other times it was a synchronous work session where nobody was really talking. We were all just writing. There were times when we were just frantically messaging, gifts and jokes to each other. And, and that was part of the work. And so I think I just want to keep doing that in whatever ways we can. And I don’t know if we need to come up with new activities to make that happen. Or if or if this is just going to keep organically happening. But that I think so often I hear planners complaining about planning, and I want to acknowledge that maybe that’s the truth of their experience. And also just express gratitude for the fact that that was not my experience. And I’m so overwhelmingly grateful for everyone, all of the organizers, everybody who had any handedness. I
Liz Norell 54:48
want to echo that very much. It was not stressful at any moment. Ever. I just I can’t think of a time when I was like I was just yet. And the people who are listening can’t see me, but I was just doing the difference of like nervous, excited versus enthusiastic, excited. So I, I totally agree with everything that Cait just said. So there are a couple of things that I’m thinking about moving forward. One of them is something that kind of organically happened in the community note capture during Josh Eiler session, which Lillian, you mentioned before, so, so disclosure, Josh is my boss, I work for him at the University of Mississippi. I don’t work for him. He’s my boss. I work with him every day. And he had this fantastic session about using backward design principles, to look at your career as an educational developer. And it was just this rapid fire series of like two to three minute reflections, kind of backward designing what you should do now, in order to get where you want to go in five to 10 years. And one of the things that came up for me when I was doing this sort of series of reflections was how much I have been wanting to write regularly for like, the higher ed mainstream publications like The Chronicle of Higher Ed, or Inside Higher Ed. And I keep sending them things and they either don’t respond, or you know, take a really long time and then say, well, now this isn’t for us. And I’m not trying to throw shade on them, just to be clear, but I do feel like they’re really impenetrable for people who are new, they tend to kind of have the same people writing over and over. And I’ve, you know, reached out to people who publish regularly and that hasn’t seemed to help. And so I mentioned in our community note, catcher during Josh’s session, that I wanted to find a mentor who could help me figure this out. And there was like, an immediate plus one plus one plus one plus one. People were like, Oh, my gosh, Me too. Me too. And I thought, Well, okay, so this is clearly not a me problem. This is a weed problem. And there are a lot of people who want to be sharing their thoughts, and they don’t know how or where to do it, either. Because they can’t, you know, they don’t have the social capital to figure out how to get there. Or perhaps because they maybe don’t have the confidence to know that what they have to say, is worthwhile to others. And so they may be holding themselves back. And so I thought, well, like, why can’t we all just write together? Like, why does it have to be in the Chronicle or IG? Why can’t we just create, like a substack community where we have, you know, a newsletter that lots of people can contribute to? And I never would have thought of that if I hadn’t been in that session and had everybody in the note catcher saying, Oh, my gosh, me too. But like, there’s a large group of people who have continued to reach out to me since last week saying, Yeah, I want to be a part of that. So just let me know. And it’s that kind of thing. That just, it’s that kind of spirit of joy and grace that I mentioned before, that just infused every moment of this gathering. And so those are the kinds of things that I want to see us working on going forward. I know that I would never have had this idea if I hadn’t been in that session. And if Josh hadn’t given us this question, and we hadn’t had this affordance of the shared Google Doc. So so that was really important. And those are the kinds of things that bring me a lot of joy. The other thing I’ll mention, and I’m going to reference another one that people who was part of this planning process on a Danelle, who’s at the University of Cincinnati, she sort of said, like, I have this friend, her name rhymes with fizz. And she has this tendency to take on lots of things. So that is me. I am the friend. I would love to start or have a monthly like hangout where we may be getting a Zoom Room together and broadcast a podcast, like think UDL, perhaps. And then just each of us, each of us do our own thing. So maybe, you know, maybe I’m doing a jigsaw puzzle and maybe somebody maybe caters knitting and maybe someone else is watching the Puffin loafing ledge webcam, and it may be someone else’s just like staring out a window, right? But like, we’re, we’re we’re together. But there’s not that like social expectation of, we’re going to interact in a really likes, social way. The last thing I want to mention is that I think probably the single most important thing we can do is exactly what we’re doing today. And so I’m really grateful Lilium that you have given us an opportunity to talk about this experience, because there’s so many people out there who are trying to create accessible, welcoming community building engaged, virtual professional development opportunities. And what we did, I don’t feel braggy about saying was remarkable and unusual. wildly effective. And I think as a team, as a group of people who put it together, we have an opportunity to create the world we want to see right create the change that we want to see in the world by talking about how we did it, why we did it, and how other people can take some of these principles. So that’s another thing that I’m hoping is going to come out of this is that, in addition to this conversation, and perhaps we can put together like, a document or an article, or maybe that’s the first thing that goes on our new community substack, about, you know, how we built an accessible by design, fully virtual, engaging, gathering?
Lillian Nave 1:00:41
Yeah, I can’t tell you how much the pleasure is all mine to be able to talk about this, because it really is putting these accessible and inclusive principles that I get to talk about a lot, you’ve really put it to use in a format that is allowing for multiple learners and for for really, every person who is different, to engage in the way that suits them best. Whether that is completely identity based, right? Just who they are, this is how or happens to be that day, right? This is all I can do that day, you’ve made it as such a flexible format that you can kind of go in and choose your own adventure. Remember those books growing up, you can you can really choose your own adventure and your ability to your abilities and decide how much you want to get out of it, which I think is you know, what every learner enters into decides, you know, how much am I going to be able to take from this experience? And how can I make it my own, and we all really had the opportunity to make it our own, and can keep going back for more. That’s what I really appreciate about it.
Liz Norell 1:02:04
I just want to say something that I find myself saying all the time, which is that what’s good for us is good for students. And all of these things that we’re talking about as being effective for engaging one another are also things that would be great deployed in a learning context with our students.
Lillian Nave 1:02:21
Absolutely, yes. And Cait, what what else? Could you tell me?
Cait Kirby 1:02:26
I think, as we’re, as we’re kind of talking about the next steps, it just keeps bringing me back to how we got here how this all got started. And I think what was really important to me is that it actually started in a zoom room full of disabled educational developers. And that While not every single person on the organizing team identifies as as having a disability or being disabled, I think the fact that so many of us and that the core of us at the beginning, do identify that way. The phrase Nothing about us without us just was so important to all of this. There was never a point where we said, oh, we can’t do that, because it’s going to take too much time. Oh, we can’t do that. Because it’s going to be too, like there was never, there was never a thought, Oh, we can just exclude those those people. And I think Liz brought this up earlier about how we would always kind of check each other to say, Who is this excluding? And I think that core principle has to be what we carry with us going forward that it always has to be with with people in the planning process who have been excluded or who are excluded, go. And that might mean that in three years, we’re no longer the planners, because we’re the in crowd now, right? And so we need to take a step away. And that I think we need to be willing to do that. And we need to be willing to just keep inviting more people. I mean, this was part of the opening session was about building tables. And it was not about just having a seat at the table or being offered a seat at an inaccessible table. It was about building more accessible tables, even if that means we’re building tons and tons of them. But I think I just keep thinking back to I think this only worked because we were so invested in inclusion from the beginning. And I I’m not worried that we would ever lose sight of that, but I want I think there might be other organizations who are thinking about trying to do this. And if inclusion and accessibility are not at the core of it, it’s not going to work as well as this one did. It’s that’s the secret sauce is us caring so much.
Lillian Nave 1:04:55
Absolutely. That is exactly the secret sauce and I mean I can leave it right there that you’ve said it all, I so appreciate it. And so I just want to thank you both Liz and Cait, thank you so much for First of all, all your care and work. And with all of your co facilitators and designers in this. Huge thank you to them. And also for your time today just to share what you’ve learned what you did, and hoping that this is really helpful. I think it’s really generative for other folks to see what you’ve done. So I just say thank you. Thank you so much for being with me today.
Liz Norell 1:05:33
Thank you, Lillian. It’s always a pleasure to get to talk to you, friend.
Cait Kirby 1:05:37
Yeah, thank you so much. This was really fun, and I appreciate it. Getting to think about UDL for presentations and gatherings and events. Great.
Lillian Nave 1:05:48
Absolutely. You can follow the think UDL podcast on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram to find out when new episodes will be released. And also see transcripts and additional materials at the think udl.org website. Thank you again to our sponsor textile Texthelp is focused on helping all people learn, understand and communicate through the use of digital education and accessibility tools. Texthelp and its people are working towards a world where difference disability and language are no longer barriers to learning and succeeding, with over 50 million users worldwide. The Texthelp suite of products includes Read and Write equates to an orbit note. They work alongside existing platforms such as Microsoft Office and G Suite and enable them to be integrated quickly into any classroom or workspace with ease. Texthelp has changed the lives of millions worldwide, and strives to impact the literacy and understanding of 1 billion people by 2030. Visit text dot help forward slash learn more that’s l earn m o r e to unlock unlimited learner potential. The music on the podcast was performed by the Oddyssey quartet comprised of Rex Shepherd, David Pate, Bill Folwell and Jose Cochez and I am your host, Lillian Nave. Thank you for joining us on The think UDL podcast