Tuesday, April 2, 2013

Are you watching DearMYRTLE's Hangouts on Air?

Many of my readers know who DearMYRTLE is - the author of DearMYRTLE's Genealogy Blog, and much more.

DearMYRTLE was one of the first genealogy writers online, and one of the first genealogy bloggers, and one of the first genealogy podcasters, and one of the first web genealogy videocasters.  For several years, she had a Go To Webinar subscription and made many helpful and interesting webinars on her own, and on the Legacy Family Tree Webinars.

Ol' MYRT has given up her Go To Webinar subscription due to the cost and limits on the number of persons she could broadcast to, and has started using Google+ Hangouts On Air (HOA) for her weekly videocasts.  The neat thing about Google+ Hangouts On Air is that they are FREE to attend, easy to archive on a YouTube channel, and can be watched thousands of persons live.

The Google+ DearMyrtle Genealogy Community group is here.  You must Join this group (after joining Google+ if you are not yet a member.  It's all FREE!) in order to comment on the Google+ posts in the community.  On this community page, DearMYRTLE hosts the live Hangout On Air with up to ten participants who JOIN the HOA before the official start of the program.  Russ Worthington is usually Ol' Myrt's partner in presentation, at least for the regularly scheduled Hangouts On Air.  If you are not able to JOIN the HOA live, then you can watch it almost live (a second or two delay) on DearMYRTLE's YouTube Channel as a VIEWer, but cannot go live on the Hangout.  You can have thousands of VIEWers on the YouTube channel.  You can make comments on the Google+ community page and Russ usually provides viewer comments during the broadcasts.

The YouTube channel keeps the archived videos and you can watch them any time you want.  Here is the Mondays With Myrt Hangout On Air from 1 April 2013:




The really neat thing about these Google+ Hangouts On Air is that they have become conversations, not lectures or presentations.  Ol' Myrt and Russ often share their screens and discuss how to do a task online, or in genealogy software, or issues of the day.  The others on the JOIN panel are able to ask questions, provide answers, and participate in the discussions - it's like having a meeting in your genealogy cave with some of your closest friends!

DearMYRTLE's YouTube Channel is at http://www.youtube.com/feed/UCZlX5znu6d7CCz6xobwMXOA.  This has all of her archived Hangouts and more, from the spontaneous 5 minute sessions at RootsTech 2013 to the weekly 90 minutes Mondays With Myrt sessions.

How can you tell when DearMYRTLE's Hangouts On Air (or any webinar) will occur?  Check the Calendar of online genealogy classes at GeneaWebinars (see http://blog.geneawebinars.com/2013/04/geneawebinars-weekly-calendar.html for the webinars and hangouts for the next month).  And watch the DearMYRTLE Genealogy Community group on Google+ for announcements.

I try to attend the Mondays With Myrt Hangouts On Air (usually as a watcher on YouTube) and if I miss one, I spend an enjoyable 90 minutes watching it after the event.

There is so much genealogy education offered these days that it's hard to keep up with.  The YouTube Channels of DearMYRTLE are one outlet - and there are the YouTube Channels offered by Ancestry.com, FamilySearch, Lisa Louise Cooke, Caroline M. Pointer, Jill Ball, and others.

The URL for this post is:  http://www.geneamusings.com/2013/04/are-you-watching-dearmyrtles-hangouts.html

Copyright (c) 2013, Randall J. Seaver


3 comments:

Steve Finnell said...

you are invited to follow my blog

Cousin Russ said...

Randy,

Thank you for your blog post.

I'd like to add one additional item for both the Joiners, the VIEWERS, and those that watch the archived You Tube Channel. During the Hangout On Air, (live), Dear MYRTLE and I watch the Comments, just below the Image for the specific Hangout and try to involve the VIEWERs by weaving their comments into the discussion.

As you may have noticed, we try to have the Joiners actively involved with the discussion. Headsets are wonderful, Mic's and Speakers work, but we all try to mute ourselves when we are not speaking. The Joiners have a way to let Myrt know that they want to say something. The point is, we want the Discussion / Dialog going.

When we were at RootsTech, the discussion on one of the topics continued for several days, including Heather Rojo finding a book on a Hession Soldier that was talked about on Monday.

This new platform is just what the doctor ordered, a way to have a discussion on what ever topic "crosses Dear MYRTLE's Desk".

Again, thank you for your comments.

Russ

GeniAus said...

Randy, I think I was travelling when you wrote this post. I just found it and it is super - I will be recommending to those who join the GeniAUS Community (similar to DearMyrtle's but with an Australian flavour).

Thank you for including a link to my Youtube channel where viewers can watch my archived Hangouts on Air.