Next facilitated course in 2012

Due to lack of students I am unable to offer FO2011 this semester. Hopefully we'll be able to offer a "live" course next year. In the meantime, if you wish to follow the course schedule by yourself, you will find it is set up so you have lots of activities and resources to learn from over the next few months.

I am looking for feedback on how we can taylor the course to meet people's needs, especially teachers. If you have any feedback, please feel free to leave a comment on this blog.

Looking for more students

I am sorry I have been a tad quiet over the last couple of days. I am waiting to see if we have enough paying students to start the course this week. If we have less than 8 students, the course will not go ahead. Obviously the material is available for everyone to see, so you're very welcome to do your own thing. But if the course does not go ahead, we will not be having any live meetings.

I'll let you know at the end of the week what the story is. Sarah

Up and running and again July 18th 2011

I am delighted to announce that Facilitating Online will be stating again on Monday July 18th. All are welcome to follow the course - you have three choices about how you interact with this course:

• Informal students No charge for people who wish to access the course materials and join the course.
• Facilitated students Receive focused and personalised learning support, full access to the course web conferencing platform and email group. Facilitated students receive a certificate of participation when they complete the course $NZ180 inc GST and Internet levy (domestic and international students)
• Formal students Receive full support and access to course materials, assessment services and formal credits for course completion $NZ442.30 approx (domestic); $500 (international students) inc. GST and Internet levy
  

For more information about the fees and how to enrol as a facilitated or formal student please contact our administrator Catherine Lindsay Email.

If you decide to join the course in any capacity, please add your name, blog address and any other online contact details to the wiki page above called "Participants".

Here's a fun quiz to do to check if you're ready for Facilitating Online 2011!

Disappointing news. FO2011 will no longer be facilitated this semester

I have disappointing news for those of you who have been following this semester's iteration of FO2011. I am afraid that I do not have enough enrolled students to be able to continue facilitating 'Facilitating Online' this semester. Therefore, the course has ceased functioning as it usually does. We hope to offer Fo2011 again in July 2011 if we can get enough enrolled students, so please let me know if you'd like to enrol for that course.

Amended course schedule
I have slightly amended the course schedule for those of you who are following the course so you still have access to weekly live events of some sort or another. I have also given you links to the recordings of useful sessions that happened last year.

Looking for facilitators
If you would like to have the opportunity to practice your facilitation of a live online event, I am looking for volunteer facilitators for the Virtual International Day of the Midwife which runs for 24 hours from 12.00 hours on the 5th May New Zealand.

If you would like to go ahead with facilitating your own event to meet the assessment requirements of this course, please feel free to use the course wiki to organise it.

Questions or feedback
If you have any questions, or would like to give me feedback about the course, please feel free to either leave a comment on this blog or email me: sarahstewart07(at)gmail.com

Hope to see you next time, Sarah


Image: 'Marinos Ices Mixture'
http://www.flickr.com/photos/34782207@N03/4539316616

April 4th Case studies

Here are several case studies that illustrate aspects of online facilitation in a number of contexts.

• eMentoring. Jenny Leigh talks to Sarah Stewart about how she uses web conferencing for eMentoring in business and non-profit organisations.
• Virtual conference. The Virtual International Day of the Midwife is an annual online conference for midwives and people interested in pregnancy and birth.
  
• Facilitating asynchronous discussion. Lorraine Mockford talks to Sarah Stewart about strategies for engaging students in discussion boards and people in general interest online communities.

Web Conferencing

Join the virtual class meeting in WiziQ - Monday 4th April 14.00 hours New Zealand time (World Clock) - click onto this link to join the Wiziq meeting room.

The speaker will be Dr. Nellie Deutsch who will talk about her experiences as an online facilitator and will also spend some time showing us how WiZiQ works. Nellie has a PhD in educational leadership and specializes in curriculum and instruction and in integrating technology into blended and fully online programs. She has designed and facilitated thousands of online workshops including Moodle for Teachers (Orientation, Beginners, Intermediate, Advanced), online facilitation, WebQuests, Professional Electronic Portfolios (via the Moodle and Mahara), and TESOL. She also presents at online and face-to-face conferences on leadership, Teaching English as a Foreign Language, and Blended Learning. In addition, she organizes and co-moderates live online conferences such as the annual February Connecting Online (CO09, CO10, CO11)and MoodleMoot (August). Nellie has also facilitated many Learning for Content (L4C) online workshops on how to use the wiki, create OER, and collaborate on WikiEducator.

• WiziQ is a free tool you may be interested in if you are a business or non-profit organisation. Information about how to use WiZiQ can be found here
• If you have any problems accessing the Wiziq classroom on the day, please contact Sarah on Skype (sarah.m.stewart)

Activities

1. Write a blog post. You may wish to answer these questions.

• How does a facilitator build an online community or network?
• What are the key things to remember when facilitating an event, meeting or education course, especially when working with people who are new to online technology?
• What is the difference between teaching and facilitation?
• What is netiquette?

2. If you would like additional experience facilitating a live, online event, please feel free to volunteer to facilitate a session during the Virtual International Day of the Midwife on May 5th. This opportunity is open to ALL students. For more information, please contact Sarah Stewart.

Image: 'Metropolis Globe New York'
http://www.flickr.com/photos/35375520@N07/3545012600

Students wanting their voices heard

This week I have been struck by the work of one of the course participants, Florence Lyons. Florence is a French teacher working with Year 11 students in New Zealand. She has been telling me that her students are very interested in being part of an online event where they can tell their stories...have teachers listen to them...where they can be themselves and not "the pupil". I am really looking forward to watching how Florence facilitates this in the online environment.

On Wednesday we joined Greg Walker and iFacilitate to think about how to facilitate asynchronous conversations in discussion forums or email groups. Greg passed on some excellent strategies for starting and developing conversations and discussion, asking strategic questions and supporting critical thinking. We also learned about the Six Thinking Hats approach to group discussion and individual thinking from Sebastian. And Greg gave us a really useful link to Fran Peavey's work: Strategic Questioning Manual

Here is the recording (I will make the mp3 available on the course wiki on Monday):

• http://elluminate.tekotago.ac.nz/play_recording.html?recordingId=1260256588914_1301440483930
  

Have a great weekend, Sarah



Image: 'Reading at the demo 2'
http://www.flickr.com/photos/62752875@N00/118170753

March 28th What is online facilitation?

Over the last two weeks we have thought about what and why we want to facilitate, but we haven't really talked about what online facilitation actually is. The definition of facilitation in the Oxford Dictionary is to 'make easy or easier'. As online facilitators, we need to think about how we make communication, learning, task management and use of technology 'easier' for the people we are working with. There are a number of models around that support us as we develop online facilitation skills. Nancy White has suggested we think about ourselves as a 'community technology stewards'. Gilly Salmon has developed a 5 stage model of online moderation and Ed Hootstein refers to wearing four pairs of shoes. To be effective online facilitators, we also need to understand how online communication works. In order to do this, it helps to understand the 'rules' of online communication otherwise known as 'netiquette'. Those of us who are teachers are further challenged to think about our practice, be it in the online or face-to-face environment - what is the difference between facilitating learning and the more traditional views of teaching? In other words, how do we facilitate learning compared to the traditional model of delivering content as the 'expert' to the learner who knows nothing? And how do we do this in the online environment?

Web conferencing
Join the virtual class meeting in Elluminate on Wednesday 30th 13.00 hours New Zealand (World Clock). Greg Walker will be discussing how he facilitates online courses. Greg is an educational technology developer and distance education coordinator at the Leeward Community College, Hawaii, USA. He is also the facilitator of the FO2011 sister course, iFacilitate. This session will be facilitated by course participants.

• The facilitators will be responsible for liaising with the speaker, managing the meeting room, reminding the course participants about the meeting, facilitating the meeting and sorting out any technical problems.
• If you are a facilitated or formal student, please feel free to volunteer to facilitate this session if you would like practice with facilitating a live web conference, or would like experience working with Elluminate.

Activity
1. Read "CoP Series No 10: Stewarding Technology for Community" by Nancy White, 2009.
2. Read Wearing Four Pairs of Shoes: The Roles of E-Learning Facilitators by Ed Hootstein, 2002.
3. Read the Gilly Salmon's 5 stages of moderation model, 2004. Gilly's work is based in education but the stages that she proposes for online engagement apply across the board. If you would rather watch/hear Gilly talk about her model, please go to her presentation "E-moderation strategies in educational contexts", 2009. NB: The term 'moderation' is interchangeable in our context with 'facilitation'.
4. Read "Netiquette" by Learn the Net, 2010.
5. Write a blog post about what you learned from White, Salmon and Hootstein. You may wish to consider these questions.

• What is an online community and an online network? What is the difference between the two?
• What online communities and networks have you been a member of? How did they work? Was there a facilitator? What was his/her role?
• How would you utilise the Salmon model of facilitation in your own context?
• What facilitation "shoes" do you wear now? What shoes would you like to wear in the future? What do you need to do to have the skills that Hootstein talks about?

Image: 'tangle'
http://www.flickr.com/photos/7941044@N06/3734424634