Welcome to Facilitating Online 09

Hello everyone and welcome to Facilitating Online 09.

My name is Sarah Stewart and I am very pleased to be facilitating this course along with Leigh Blackall. We have people joining us from all over the world so we can expect great networking, discussion and collaboration.

We will be spending the next couple of months looking at how to be an online facilitator, discussing the difference between facilitating, teaching and moderating; looking at various online communities and facilitating our own online events. For details about the course schedule, please check the course wiki.

Getting started
If you haven't done so yet, please set up a blog that you can use for your weekly reflections and explorations. If you're not sure how to set up a blog, have a look at these instructions. For an idea of how blogging works, have a look at the blogs of previous participants.

When you write a blog post for this course please label or tag it FOC09 - that way we can all keep a track of what and when we're writing.

Once you have set up your blog, add it to the list of this year's participants, then write a post about yourself, introducing yourself to everyone - write about who you are, why you are doing the course, what you hope to get out of the course and what experience you have had of belonging to an online community.

Connecting with other course participants
To get the most out of the course it is advisable to network with the other course participants. One way of doing this is to subscribe to each other's blogs. Follow the thoughts of your 'classmates', leave comments and continue the discussion on your own blog.

First online meeting
Our first online meeting will be on Friday 31st July at 11am New Zealand time - click here to see what time this is in other regions of the world. We will be using the online web conferencing platform Elluminate - click here to find out how to access Elluminate. In this meeting, we'll be introducing ourselves and getting to know each other better. We will record the meeting so if you are unable to attend, you will be able to view/listen to the recording.

Saying 'hello'
I will be phoning around over the next couple of days to catch up with formally enrolled students. If you are an informal student and wish to check in with me, please feel free to contact me via any of the online communication channels I use.

Any queries about what we're doing, your enrollment or the technology, please feel free to contact me. Sarah


Image: The Street Where I Live Choconancy1
http://www.flickr.com/photos/choconancy/153421693