Northcentral University's Dr. Kimberley Fatata-Hall discusses sharing and learning from people's lived experiences during COVID-19. Her website, Want, Wish, Need is a unique online opportunity to share your story and read the stories of others. Check it out at https://www.wantwishneed.com/
Northcentral University's Dr. Kimberley Fatata-Hall discusses sharing and learning from people's lived experiences during COVID-19. Her website, Want, Wish, Need is a unique online opportunity to share your story and read the stories of others. Check it out at https://www.wantwishneed.com/
Amy 0:02
Best brings you exciting and practical tips for improving your virtual teaching and virtual learning experience. Hi, welcome everyone. We are here today with Dr. Kimberly Fatata-Hall. Hall. And Dr. Hall. I'm so thrilled that you're here. Can you tell us a little bit about yourself?
Kimberley 0:19
Oh, Amy, thanks for having me. I am a retired special ed teacher and administrator. And I work part time for ncu teaching their undergraduate special ed courses. Great. And how long have you been doing this kind of work? Well, you know, I've taught online since 1999. I was like in the original push and writing the courses. And in the whole one we used to use dial up for the internet and all that. So we were really how did we ever get through it. But anyway, I've been doing this a long, long time. And I've seen it come and go, and people come and go and different technologies use. So I feel pretty proud of my history of teaching online.
Amy 1:06
I can't even imagine teaching or being a student in the dial up world. That was tough. That must be a story. And speaking of stories, you have a special project that you've been working on, called one wish need. Will you tell us more about that?
Kimberley 1:25
Sure, the background of it was when I was a administrator for a group of young special ed teachers in a high school setting, I would give them a sticky note every Monday. And just those three words were on it. And they had to give it back to me by Wednesday or something like that. And I found that what they really wanted what they wish for and what they needed were all specific things that they felt could make their job better. And I took that idea. And I talked to a clinical psychologist, friend of mine, we do hiking trips together. So we're always talking on the trail. And we came up with every time you have a conversation with anybody, those three words will come up sometime in the conversation, what somebody wants, what they wish for what they needed. That's like a regular part of our conversation just among friends, people, you know. So I thought, what a great time to take what wish need when we're just coming out of this lockdown for a year, and expanded into people's stories of what happened during that year, what people wanted, what they really wished for what is ongoing that they still need. And at first, I thought I wanted to capture teachers stories, because this was a teaching background of what I had done with teachers. But now I realize it's for everybody. Because everybody was in the pandemic, not just teachers. Not
Amy 3:02
that's interesting. Can you share a little example of some of the stories that you've heard so far, either from a teacher or from someone else?
Kimberley 3:11
I was bowled over when I got a story from somebody that has a chemistry background. And although she doesn't mention it in her story, and you can read it on the website, she was on the team that was developing the tests for antibodies for COVID. Wow, well, she was doing this from home part time in a lab. They were so restricted in how many people could be in the lab and all kinds of, of barricades were up for her. But she never mentioned that in the story. She mentions watercolors of being having time to do watercolor painting and and how much she enjoyed putting together things projects that she had put off. So I was I'm just amazed at what people share in their stores.
Amy 4:03
Yeah, that sounds really interesting. So what do people need to be able to contribute to these stories? They have to have any special skills?
Kimberley 4:11
No, not really. The website is designed a wonderful group here in Charleston called front and center. I worked with this and and they worked with me and I kind of put them under a deadline. I was like we need these stories. Now. We need this website up now. So if people want to contribute, and I'm asking as many people as we can possibly get, I want to I want this website to blow up. They can enter their story by email, they can write it and just push a button and it'll come to me. They can record an audio and upload it or they can record a video audio and upload it one simple step push about what are you hoping to accomplish by doing all this work? I thought a lot about that. I You know, we can look back at the 1919 flu epidemic, that whole pandemic. And we have data, we have numbers of people that got sick and people that passed away because of that virus. And we will have that data for the pandemic. But we don't have personal stories from 1919 of what people went through, how they felt, what they wanted, what they wished, what they needed. So I want to capture this time with people's stories.
Amy 5:34
And so if I was out there right now thinking about whether or not I wanted to do this, what what do you think would motivate someone to want to share their story?
Kimberley 5:45
I think the thought that they might feel that their story is unique. And if they go to the website and see other people's stories, they can see that parts of their story are unique, but there is a collective of everybody in there. I also want people to know that it's pretty much anonymous, what you see on the website is what you put on there. But if you don't want people to know your entire name, that doesn't come up on the website. So for example, go back to the chemist, her identifier is just chemist. That's it. So people want to put stories in there that are difficult, but they do want to share, they can be assured that their personal information isn't going to be shared on the internet.
Amy 6:33
So are you doing anything to make like, are you editing any parts of the story or making sure that those elements are taken out, if somebody makes a mistake,
Kimberley 6:42
I, I'm leaving the content alone, if there's a mistake in there, there's a mistake in there, nobody's perfect. But what we'll show is a generic email address, I can keep the original. And if people want me to put anything in there, they can put that in the essay. But I don't want people to feel like, well, I should really can't put that in there because it will show who I am or where I am. And I would rather not. So I just want people to know that it's a safe place. It is a safe place to put your information in there that you think people need to know during this last year. And what's happening now we're starting to open that up, people are starting to get their vaccines. So it would be a continuation of this whole whole year that we've been through.
Amy 7:36
That sounds really interesting. And just to be clear, going back to your want wish need with the educators, I know you were doing some things to help those educators get the things that they want and need. But that's if I correct me if I'm wrong. But if I understand you, right, that's not what this website is about. It's not about helping people get those things. It's really just about talent talking about those things. Is that right?
Kimberley 8:00
That's, that's correct. And I'm I'm glad you brought that up, because I don't have the ability, nor do I want to have that capability of providing what you wish. That's not the purpose of the website. It is what you wished for during this past year. It is not a physical thing that somebody can provide for you. I would think that kind of one wish need would be a site where people donate money to a specific cause. This, isn't it. This is a website to capture people's stories. Great. And are you
Amy 8:39
intending to do any research with these stories? Or could another researcher tap into this website to do research if they wanted to?
Kimberley 8:47
You know, the information is there. I guess another researcher could come in and do a general overview of all you in intense admissions, you had three that wanted the same thing. But I personally am not going to use this any kind of data for data collection or research or anything like that. This is a website a safe website, I want to reiterate that for people to put their stories and I will say one of the things and some research that I've been a part of that really came came out strongly was this finding around people's need for connection. And I when I looked at your website, I just thought wow, this is a place where people can connect. You can connect with the stories on there, just personally privately from your home, knowing that there are others who've had similar experiences.
Kimberley 9:43
I think that's important when when we were in maybe we month three or four of a lockdown I realized that I wasn't the only one that was lonely and miss that connection. Yes, I could contact my friends via zoom I could see my children in a distance. But there was a lot more missing. And just the the camaraderie of a light situation. So I think that this website will help people understand that they were not the only ones that felt that way.
Amy 10:18
Yeah, I definitely feel that as well, when I looked at the website, and it's just fun, right? It's just fun to share your stories. It's one easy thing to do. Yeah, it's want wish need.com. And can they reach you? Or is there a contact information?
Kimberley 10:36
If they have questions there is an email link there, it comes right to my personal email. So yeah, if they have any questions, but that website is always up. I have wonderful support people to help with that. So I'm not worried about it crashing. But you know, I want a lot of people to go there and put their story. Great. So don't be shy, share your story. It will be fun and anything else? Doctor? Hell? No. Amy, thank you so much for having me. I think this is just a wonderful time to do something like this, to share what we've been through and to keep it as an archive.
Amy 11:19
So Dr. Hall, I have one last question for you that we ask all of our guests on the best podcasts. And that's to fill in the blank in the sentence. I used to think Virtual Education was, but now I think Virtual Education is...
Kimberley 11:37
I used to think Virtual Education was an ends to a means you could improve your whatever your job, you're standing with virtual education. But now I think it's a gift. It's a gift that all of us can use.
Amy 11:57
I love that. Great. Thank you so much for your time today. Have a great day, everyone. Thanks for joining us on VESC This is Dr. Amy Lynn. Remember, learning is right at your fingertips.