FO2010: Mini Conference

Karen, Mark, and Tracy's event:
I'm intrigued by iMEET. What a useful looking tool. I went in and found some questions, and was able to answer them successfully. But, unfortunately there was a problem with skype as a conference tool, and I wasn't able to take part at the time in the discussion.
That's ok.... these things happen and the faciliators we really sweet and wrote to me afterwards. (In saying that though, throughout the time that I was waiting to join the conference I fought with myself not to take it personally. I knew it wasn't personal, ... I hadn't been forgotten, ...that something wasn't quite right technically, so, although I didn't actually take part in the synchonous discussion, I have been able to reflect on the possible impact of a technical hitch on any 'highly-strung' student or participant in my online courses, and anticipate preparing for that eventuality. As part of my instructions, I would include a message telling students what to do if connection fails. As it was, in this instance, the facilitators handled making contact with me very well, and I felt a lot better when they emailed me... yes, I admit, I have the potential to be a 'highly-strung' high-maintenance participant. Sorry about that... tiresome ... but as I get older am learning to 'chill' more.)

I went into Illuminate to see if the conference had been transferred there, and came across
Jade Wratten's session, (with Fiona Coffey presenting)
This was a fabulously informative session and I loved it!
I took notes, not that I needed to, but was so inspired by Fiona's basic and essential tips.

1. "Be prepared" she said. "Have your content ready! ...She continued with:
2. Appreciate the richness of participant contributions. There are many ways to communicate, beware relying on one medium of interaction, especially voice, lest participants without microphones be excluded.
3. Time keeping: her strategy for keeping on time is not to have an open mic. 
4. Understanding the boundaries: inform participants of what you expect from them, and at the beginning of the class (and at relevant times throughout the course) remind participants about maintaining respectful interactions.
5. Seek and welcome feedback: useful for making your course better, and you can use it as part of your institution's appraisal process... good tip!
6. Get to the point: Fiona recommended that an average session should have no more than 10 minutes of content, and the rest of the time should be made up of discussion and interaction. Get students to prepare their own content to share... social collaboration, engaging methodology.
7. Blank the screen at the end of the session, and invite participants to reflect on what went well in the session, and what they liked. Summaries are important for wrapping up the session, and the participants enjoy being part of this process.

Voice threads:
I fully intended to contribute to the several voice thread events... and in the end I didn't. This is my bad. The asynchronous nature of these events meant that that which is momentary (and urgent) is allowed to take precedence over that which is important.
I love the idea of asynchronous voice threads, and am ashamed of myself that the weeks went by til it was too late to contribute.
My thoughts on voice threads: what is that magic balance between having an overly rehearsed and stiff posting, versus  a rambling stream of consciousness, either of which would be equally inhibiting for the listener or participant? I know that I have a tendancy to gabble (which coupled with my New Zild uccint, must be decidedly distracting.) I think too, that people (generally) can feel more "exposed" using a spoken forum; as a learning developer and academic literacy advisor, speaking proficiency is fast becoming an area of particular interest. Will be discussing this with colleagues and community of learning advisors in a few day's time at the ATLAANZ 2010 conference in Christchurch, my reflections on which I expect will occupy the next few postings in this blog.