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.

Training with Steve Wheeler "How lucky am I?!"

Here at the University of Waikato our WCeL team (Waikato Centre for eLearning) hosted UK elearning expert Steve Wheeler (aka Timbuckteeth on Twitter) for a morning workshop on Web 2.0. We defined this term as "real time interactive software on the net, that allows users to generate their own content" ...or UGC (User Generated Content), aka 'socal web' or 'participatory web', and valued for the way it has to potential to 'give everyone a voice'. To this end, Steve encouraged us to think about the nature of learning; to think about what students do to learn, and how they check the accuracy of what they are learning; how they make order from chaos. This reflection must influence the way we select the tools we use.

Social Tagging:
Steve gave an effective visual demonstration as metaphor for social tagging. We were given a small pad of post-it notes (little squares of paper with a slightly tacky edge that can be stuck to a range of surfaces,) upon which we wrote a word (or two) describing or defining the objects in the room around us. We then stuck the notes on said object. As the exercise progressed we could start to see patterns emerging. Certain objects started to attract a noticable number of labels, and although the words describing such objects were different, they all could be seen to have meaning in relation to the object.
This is how social tagging works.
However, Steve Wheeler took this further to demonstrate how our global community has taken the seemingly chaotic and from it created a semblance of order. We wrote our names on pieces of paper (the same little post-it notes) and screwed them into balls we then tossed randomly into the room. That is chaos, but when instead he selected one participant and we all threw our papers toward him; this demonstrated how tag clouds develop. There are several theories that describe this phenomenon: "the wisdom of the crowd" being one. There were others he listed too, although I can't remember what they were (unfortunately) and some of them were contradictory. (I must go onto Slideshare.net and see if he's uploaded his slides... this information might be there.)

Other tools
We looked at a number of tools or methods:
WetPaint - a tool for developing wikis. He uses it to encourage problem solving. Students go off and find stuff out which they then collaborate on to make a resource.
(Note: I've used wikis in the classroom successfully too, but modern students are extremely strategic... they have to be... and will not contribute to a project like this unless they have to... unless there is some way that they will benefit in regards to their grades if they do. My students benefitted in that the resource they together created formed the basis of an assessment, so although each student needed only to contribute a little bit of content, they could then use the entire resource to prepare for the assessment. It worked very well, but took a lot of effort on the behalf of the teacher to set up.) Back to WetPaint. There was concern raised that the free version of this product (if there still is a free version) is inundated with advertising.
Delicious - (social bookmarking) a place to go for aggregations of tag clouds on a theme. This raises the visibility of relevant content according to tag themes, but has the added benefit of raising the visibility of people interested in that content. (Really neat  - I was able to find very specific stuff I was looking for which I hadn't been able to find with a normal 'search-engine' search.)

Podcasting - there was a lot of interest in the demonstration that Steve gave on using Audacity to create quick and easy sound files. Audacity is really a very simple and effective tool to use which I (happen to) use all the time.
What wasn't discussed however, is that there can be a little bit of fiddling to install and set up Audacity. Getting Audacity working first off is a piece of cake, but ! to make MP3 files the program requires a certain type of decoder which (for proprietary reasons) needs to be installed separately and then linked in from within the Audacity program (the first time only - fortunately). It took me ages to sort this, and I didn't get a lot of help from my friendly ITS dept who responded to my bleat with "This is not what we do". However, they did then give me sufficient written instructions which, after a bit of perseverance, led eventually to success).

Slideshare.net - a repository for slides and other documents. What I liked about slideshare is that there were articles also... slides may have limited value, but the articles are interesting.
Flickr - similar to slideshare, but these are images. I like Flickr, but have yet to understand how it can become a learning tool.

Twitter - we looked at the tweets flying in for Timbuckteeth. The point that Steve Wheeler made about Twitter was that it's not about the content so much as the connections.
---
Forgive me... I feel the need to rant...
I must say... that, well... I found the session most valuable, but I was not comfortable with the interaction activities we were set. They worked very well to demonstrate what Steve intended, but they made me feel vulnerable and insecure. I did not know very many of the other participants, and certainly did not have the sense of trust that... well, that I feel that I have developed with you in the FO2010 course. This I realise is a personality 'thang' and there were other more social and sanguine personalities who really enjoyed the experience - so yay for them. However! I need remember that not all my students are like me so, I have to make it safe for all my students; allow the interaction that a sanguine craves, but give my phlegmatic learners permission not to participate if this is possible - whether f2f or online.
(And I did not appreciate having my 'fighting spirit' questioned in front of a class of strangers because I was the last to achieve an activity! I had so 'moved on' from that activity... who cares if the task is finished when the point that needed to be made was so made already)

Session with Steve Wheeler today

Attending a session today with Steve Wheeler ... check out his blog. Will let you know in a few hours the insights I've gleaned from the session

Reflection: community and isolation

DimDim
We had a lesson faciliated in DimDim the other day, a free (mostly) synchronous web-based classroom tool. It was fun, and it was impressive to watch / hear the facilitators calmly dealing with some fairly significant technical problems. (When the facilitator transferred controls to the guest speaker we all lost sound / video contact. )

So, I decided that I should try it out, and set up a meeting with a friend in another city. She wanted to talk with me about the content of an assignment. DimDim worked well, I shared a document with her, and I talked, she listened and if there were questions she typed in the chat box. (This I think may take some getting used to... as the faciliator I wanted more feedback from my (single) participant, and a two-way voice (at least, and video preferably) interaction. And! as happened to our faciliators in the FO2010 course, when I gave her control the wheels fell off - more precisely, she lost connection and couldn't get back in). 

So, I say Yay! and I'm really glad to have had the opportunity to use DimDim with the class as a participant - and to then go off and use it myself; and what an amazing example of calm unruffled faciliators quietly working behind the scenes to sort the technical hitches. Very impressed! (because of calm faciliators we felt relaxed within ourselves to chat a bit while we waited - which was neat). (I guess that this is why products like Elluminate and WimbaLive are so expensive... they don't have quite the same vulnerability to bandwidth discrepancies... maybe?) [big happy face]

But Twitter [not very happy face]
For some reason a number of would-be participants were not able to take part in the #FO2010 stream. We spent the session watching what we could of the conversation, but missing such a significant portion that the summary at the end came as a complete surprise... I had no idea that the participants had discussed the content to the extent that a summary could be extracted from the stream. I think now that this must provide me with an inkling of what it must be like to be deaf... if I could ever have any idea... desperately trying to keep up with whatever one can glean from a conversation, and knowing that so much is missing, but not knowing what and not being able to ask, and the conversation swirls on around... it was horribly isolating. I know that the other participants would have included me if they could have... would have welcomed my participation... I felt stupid (an illogical gut response which I observe and then file in the "don't go there" basket).

So... still to decide the usefulness of Twitter for a conversation. I'll set up a conversation with someone and see how it works and let you know.

Break Out rooms

Last week we experiemented in our Faciliating Online course with using break-out rooms... these are folders within the interface that can be used to divide a larger class into smaller groups, meaning that interaction within that group is seen only by that group.

Really enjoy the idea of break-out rooms and that our facilitators for the day allowed us to try them. Thank you heaps... I appreciated their courage to use them, especially as I hadn't seen them used before. It was a valuable session.
Break-out rooms have obvious facility and application. They provide additional opportunity for students to contribute.

Thoughts for pondering before using a breakout room

1. Facilitating the group (turn-taking): We still found that we hesitated to start... not because we didn't know what to do, but more because ours was not the responsibility to direct other students. I personally am quite comfortable to take a semi-facilitating role in a group, but not over the top of someone else who may appreciate the opportunity. So, we all hesitated; finally someone stepped in and we moved forward. So, this leads to the next thought to ponder.
2. Solving a problem: We were asked to discuss an idea, which we did. (However, my ideal about how long is reasonable for one person to 'hog' the microphone may be different from classmates, and therefore I felt a slight sense of frustration when a speaker's thoughts were not so collected leading to  more time than what I considered was a fair share.) But that's beside the point.... this experience has taught me to think about instructions. In my break-out rooms, how directive and specific should I be? My instructions might look something like this: First: select a group facilitator (to guide turn-taking and help with keeping to the topic and summarising, Second: discuss the ... [task]... Thirdly, At [specify a time], use the whiteboard to summarise the discussion... etc. To finish: At [specify a time] return to the main class.
3. Bringing the class back together at the end of the session: Wow! it had never occurred to me that bringing everyone back together (especially once they've started) could be an issue. Using a timer was a good idea, I'll do that. But also... perhaps, could the facilitator visit each group individually (don't know what the Elluminate's facility for doing this is...) and gently break into the conversation, and get the group to begin feedback on the main whiteboard while he or she visits the next group until they have all joined the main class and everyone has made it back. (Would this be possible? or is the software a little limited for this?)

What I really appreciate about this process, and about the commitment of my peers in this course, is that without it and them (you!) I wouldn't have had the opportunity to reflect on using break-outs with an online class. Grateful!

Conferencing with Skype

It was really lovely to be contacted by Karen (in Canada) who invited Jean (in NZ) and me (also in NZ) to conference with her using Skype. Thank you so much Karen and Jean, really enjoyed getting to know you better. Because of you I was able to feel smugly that I had achieved the homework for the week, whereas in fact you had done all the work for me and I only had to talk - how easy is that - thank you guys.

Pros:
It is that little bit more special to hear the voices of those with whom we are studying. As a faciliator I can definitely see an application for conferencing with a small group, perhaps to talk with them about an assignment or a group assignment, or to plan something with course participants. As faciliators of online courses we have some responsibility with the social aspects of being in a learning community so geographically widespread and skype conferencing has a role to play here. We didn't use video, and my peers on this occasion didn't have photos uploaded, and that's fine, just hearing their voices was lovely.

Cons:
We don't have the best of bandwidth 'down under' and I found that at times I lost too much of the sound to be able to follow the thread of the conversation. We then resorted to text chat to finish our conference, with which I am quite comfortable... being a touch typist, but I could imagine that for some this might slow the process to unsustainable.

So, it was fun and valuable and I would encourage my learners to be in contact with each other using skype (hmm - what precedent would I use to get them talking? - must think on this more). The paradox is however, that, because of limitations to infrasructure that still exist, (even in a supposedly Western country like NZ) it could not be a compulsory exercise, and this would have the potential to defeat the purpose.
Still, it's a great technology; another to add to one's suite of technologies to be pressed into pedagogical service.

Turn-taking:
What I noticed (and I have this problem also with the Elluminate sessions) is that I really don't know what I should be doing in terms of 'turn-taking protocols'. Without the visual cues that I use for assessing turn-taking in day-to-day interactions there's a tendancy for one to be 'unheard' (and I must confess to this being a problem in day-to-day interactions for me too, which is why I take to asynchronous options like blogs). It seems that only those not as concerned about turn-taking get to speak. In the context of this course I'm not bothered by this at all, but it has caused me to pause and reflect on what strategies I might use to help my learners understand expectations... containing overly enthusiastic contributors while encouraging 'not-so-vocal' participants.  (Elluminate has a button to indicate a raised hand; that's good and seems to work, but I don't put my hand up... I need to practice putting my hand up, and maybe I need to give my learners time to practice putting their hands up. Possibly too, I might include some pauses during the class for questions and feedback. Our facilitators and guests have done this, providing time to write on the whiteboard as a group (except someone wrote over the top of my text box!), a pause to draw pictures, and of course, we chat away in the chat window while the speaker is delivering content - it's a lot of fun).

A successful activity. Well done, Sarah, for setting it for us!

Those visual cues

Am really glad I was available on Saturday morning to take part in the Elluminate class faciliated by co-students Sharon and Carole who did a fabulous job, and guest Nancy directing us from her home in Seattle. I appreciated the way that the phone was ringing and the dog was barking in the house, all contributing to the sense that our facilitator is part of the real world.

There were a number of themes that emerged as the session progressed. Nancy indicated quite early on that she was deliberately underprepared; that she would go with the direction that her learners/participants led. I loved that, because we all wanted the opportunity to 'have a look at' the way the program works from a faciliator perspective without having to be a facilitator first in order to see how to use the program as a facilitator ... does that make sense?

We discussed the idea of 'failing safely'... am already aware of the need for safety within an online environment (any learning environment) but had never identified quite so concretely "safe from what?" In a f2f classroom, of course, the faciliator monitors carefully to make sure the participants are safe from mockery, from 'losing face' (I have a lot of students for whom this is a very real fear... a valid fear from their cultural perspectives), are safe from exclusion and from feeling abandoned and isolated... left behind. Of course we do that. The idea of 'failing safely' was not one that made it onto my list, but now it has...that 'failing' can be a strategy from which valuable learning can take place.

 

Now I want to know how... and of course loved the softly inclusive responsiveness of Nancy, Carole and Sharon's faciliation; will try to do the same. However, I have some questions.

1. Their 'negotiated curriculum' style was lovely, but not bounded at all by the requirements of a curriculum. So, have been thinking about how we might negotiate the expectatioin of one with the ideal of the other
2. Signals: in a f2f classroom we read the various cues of our learners, and we get quite sensitive to them. We know that if the students tell us that that they understand that does not necessarily mean that they do; we read body language, facial expressions, we concept check, we get students talking together in pairs or small groups and we monitor monitor monitor. So, an online class shouldn't be any different in principle, but a number of those cues are not there. Can we put the responsibility back onto the learners to let us know if they're not with us... (am not convinced that's a reasonable expectation). Nancy got us providing our perspectives on the whiteboard and working together, she had us drawing pictures, and reflecting on the learning that was taking place. (It is this that I mean when I say that f2f pedagogy and online pedagogy are not the same... or... they are in principle, but they're not when it comes to the practicalities and we faciliators must adjust to what is available to us in this new environment).
3. Play: my husband saw our doodles on Nancy's whiteboard and he said "You guys are just playing!", which was really cute, but we were and it was fun, and I learned so much! What a primal concept - playing to learn... all mammals do that!
4. Faciliator summaries and meaning making: How much, if at all? I like that the facilitator summarises, and provides a road map of the themes. There was concern expressed in the session that this might inhibit the meaning making for students who need to express their own meanings . Good point, but summarising is still a crucial in my mind... for capturing the essence of the content and as a strategy for helping students keep up. We need to summarise, but I might get the students to do it too, perhaps to invite them to contribute to my summary in some way. Maybe to make a resource from which study material can be gleaned for an assessment? Does anyone have ideas about this?

Social faciliation

Thanks to Terry Neal for her report on the significant effort and administration that went into the SLENZ project. What a commitment.
Two things that I picked up on, one of which I'd like to note here as of some interest (to me at least). Terry mentioned that one of the things they did in Second Life, (amongst others) was to have a social event... a party! Social disconnection within an online learning community is a factor I see discussed quite frequently. 
Good idea... and Terry noted that it was economical in so many ways (which made me chuckle quietly). I was wondering how you (would) manage the inevitable social needs of your learning communities... and to what extent do considerations of the social needs of your learners impact on your responsiveness to them individually, while maintaining the balance between your need for your professional and private space, and facilitating a sense of family and camaraderie amongst your participants.

Reflections on the idea of Online Communities

On Friday (30 July 2010) I attended a little in-house staff professional development... the topic: Online student interaction and communities.

We listened to phd candidate Elaine Khoo share her insights from research on online communities that contributed to her phd thesis. Would like to share a little of that here; found it so relevant, so logical, so serendipitous in timing, so synergistic with what other commentators are saying in this week's lesson...

Elaine's enquiry was how to go beyond the mechanics of the technology to enable learners to be comfortable to engage with each other, with the content, with the faciliator... to be comfortable to participate. Her leading question was "What kind of pedagogical strategies need to be put in place to encourage participation?"

She shared five principles of online faciliation:

1. Affordances and constraints: An elearning environment has limitations and constraints as well as offering benefits and affordances. There are things that can be achieved very well, and teaching practices that cannot easily be transferred. That's a fact of life - we should get used to it  I like to use metaphor, so hang in there with me: recent reflection at an mLearning day here how the stereotypical archtype that is the tertiary educator is dragged bouncing and sliding along the road compelled unwillingly  by the overwhelming powerful digital and information explosion toward change in methodology and pedagogy.  For many of you this may seem a no-brainer, and you're choosing to embrace it, but in reality there are many many teachers who can't or won't adjust or adapt, and each such teacher has good and valid reasons for resisting. They are right in many ways, there are definitely constraints. Let's be realistic.
2. Safety: A safe and inviting environment encourages participation. We need to be very aware of the need to foster trust and respect. (My question is what mechanisms and strategies might do this?)
3. Authenticity: there needs to be real-world contexts for the learning to be meaningful. (Again, I'd like to see ideas around this).
4. Goals: Different types of interaction are fostered by goals.
5. Learning communities: Students value the concept of learning communities. A faciliator is responsible to take on a number of roles for the growth of his or her learners... the faciliator needs to foster intellectual, social, and emotional development, have managerial and technical skills, as well as sound pedagogical underpinning. Not a trivial list!

Reference:
Khoo, E. G. L. (2010) Developing an Online Learning Community: A strategy for improving lecturer and student learning experiences. Available at: http://researchcommons.waikato.ac.nz//handle/10289/3961

Hunters or gatherers - or does it matter?

Last week I took part as a student in my first ever online class (via Illuminate). ..really good to experience an environment like that as a learner, before needing to manage it as a faciliator for oneself.

My reference in the title to a hunter or gatherer is about personalities. The online facilitator must maintain a number of balls in the air at once. Would this mean that this style of delivery might be more suited to personalities who are natural multi-taskers, and that a focused personality (a very useful skill to have indeed in certain situations) might not manage as adroitly as Sarah does? Keeping tabs with who is entering the classroom at various times, as well as maintaining the thread of the lesson, back-tracking to fill-in a late comer, technical trouble-shooting for participants finding their way around, delivering the content of the lesson, and keeping up with student input on the screen. Whew!

What are you?... a hunter or a gatherer, and how does that impact on the way you manage your synchronous e-classroom environment? 
What does this mean for teacher training? (Putting myself on the line here to suggest that teacher trainees need an apprenticeship with an experienced mentor to learn to teach online)

Tacit protocols... Turn-taking and timing: Was wondering about different ways that a faciliator might manage turn-taking. In such an environment it's easy to imagine that some participants might not get an equal opportunity to participate, especially if they come from a more circumspect culture where timing between utterances is longer than we might be comfortable with here, or think is reasonable considering the contraints of a timetable. Do these protocols need to be discussed openly in a class... how much direction as a facilitator do you employ to maintain even participation?
Ideas about this anybody?

Taking your hands off the wheel

Your conversation has inspired me to reflect ... and feel that I'd like to repeat those reflections here at a higher level so that as the years go by I can keep them in front of me... (I've just read through some of my old postings... gosh I was naive... but it's a good record too of where I've come from).

Online facilitation (to an extent) requires us to let go, to give more autonomy to our learners, even to be prepared to negotiate the curriculum with them. However! we are (still) trained as teachers to be in control, for our learners to be on task, key performance indicators, expected outcomes, proficiency, assessment, yadda yadda... yet then in an online environment our role is to stand back and let our learners do the learning. I wonder if... (and forgive me if I come across as cynical) this letting go of control is difficult for many teachers. ... Add this to (as Kim Mc observed), that the need to be technologically prepared is (paradoxically) so significant that it's simply too big and we aren't paid enough.

Commitment

The volume of text input, the different places to go to find information about what to do, signing in here or setting up an account there, elluminate classroom sessions - everything we need is there and it's good, really. But the commitment on the behalf of the student to get organised, to persist, to find the answers... I do think it's worth it and I'm not complaining; it has just that it has made me think about what it must be like for my learners... daunting and intimidating perhaps, and lonely.

I ask myself how much of an assumption on the digital literacy of our students is it reasonable to make?

Facilitating online course

Having experimented with elearning in my classroom for a few years now, with mixed success, am keen to extend my horizons. (From a professional developer's point of view as well I'm interested in what it is about elearning that prevents so many of my colleagues from considering it as part of their practice... although not sure if this very environment would tell me that; also, how learners experience [my] digital faciliation - and such a course as this is ideal ... will be blogging.)

Looking forward to the insights of the faciliators and other participants on digital faciliation. In this newly revived blog I'll be reflecting on my ideas and progress (or lack thereof) as the course progresses.

(Heads up: I have a tendancy to be blunt in a blog or forum environment. Please don't be bothered by that. )