I got up really early today so I could catch up with the blogs, the readings and the course overall before work. Hmmm. Have I achieved my target? No way. So I'm sitting here, frustrated, wanting to read what all the other participants have written, and there are some great titles, and have to get ready for work and yes, I'm behind schedule.
My tardiness and inability to keep up with the course material has given me much to ponder. I'm realising that I not only can"t have it all, I can't do it all!!
Online Facilitating
An exploration of creative ways to engage in learning and teaching
Monday, September 6, 2010
Wednesday, August 18, 2010
Feeds, internet addresses and generous facilitators
Last night, I was challenged with fixing my blog's feed and sent out an SOS on the facilitating online course newsgroup. Chris Woodhouse from the UK immediately offered to talk to me on Skype to help sort out the technicalities and we set the time for early this morning my time, which was in the evening for Chris. I uploaded a new subscription chicklet using Feedburner in the meantime to see if that would fix the problem. I still had my old version of the subscription button on the page because I was interested to see if Chris could help me figure out what I'd done wrong.
Lisa Barrett, another course participant, rang from South Australia to see if she could help. We had a lovely conversation, which of course, drifted off to midwifery. Anyone who knows midwives would recognise that the drift to midwifery topics is inevitable when midwives communicate in any medium. This morning, I bounded out of bed, ready for my Skype call with Chris, checked the emails and there was a response from Claire Thompson from Canada suggesting that the problem lies with the blog feed address. Claire had kindly tried to reinsert the feed address and the reader wouldn't let her. The subscription box wouldn't let her subscribe either. At that point, I decided to delete the old subscription button and see what happened from there.
The Skype call with Chris was great. We went back and forth from the edited Wiki participants' page to my blog, with Chris talking me through various scenarios. Very quickly, Chris identified the problem. The address on the Wiki was different to the feedburner address. Chris explained how to hover over the chiklet and right click the mouse to bring up the copy link function. Chris then reopened the Wiki participants' page and pasted the link into the list, replacing the previous information.
Brilliant! The links to my blog on the participants' Wiki page are now functional. Anyone can now subscribe to my blog. I'm doing the happy dance :-)
Thanks so much to Chris, Lisa and Claire for their kindness and help. I getting to really appreciate this online community.
Lisa Barrett, another course participant, rang from South Australia to see if she could help. We had a lovely conversation, which of course, drifted off to midwifery. Anyone who knows midwives would recognise that the drift to midwifery topics is inevitable when midwives communicate in any medium. This morning, I bounded out of bed, ready for my Skype call with Chris, checked the emails and there was a response from Claire Thompson from Canada suggesting that the problem lies with the blog feed address. Claire had kindly tried to reinsert the feed address and the reader wouldn't let her. The subscription box wouldn't let her subscribe either. At that point, I decided to delete the old subscription button and see what happened from there.
The Skype call with Chris was great. We went back and forth from the edited Wiki participants' page to my blog, with Chris talking me through various scenarios. Very quickly, Chris identified the problem. The address on the Wiki was different to the feedburner address. Chris explained how to hover over the chiklet and right click the mouse to bring up the copy link function. Chris then reopened the Wiki participants' page and pasted the link into the list, replacing the previous information.
Brilliant! The links to my blog on the participants' Wiki page are now functional. Anyone can now subscribe to my blog. I'm doing the happy dance :-)
Thanks so much to Chris, Lisa and Claire for their kindness and help. I getting to really appreciate this online community.
Rabbit holes and other ways of wasting time
This week has been my week off work designed to write articles, do some work on the PhD and catch up with the OF course. So far I've managed to do very little of any of my set tasks. I've watched and listened to the Elluminate sessions. Commented on a couple of blog posts. Read Sarah's blog entry and tried to fix the RSS feed.
The attempt to fix the RSS feed took the majority of time today. Disillusioned, disrupted and despairing, I sent out an SOS on the news group. I've also been very caught up with the politicking on Twitter and found myself reading very interesting, but irrelevant (to my stated tasks!) articles.
The wonderful Chris Woodhouse has responded in brilliant facilitator fashion and will Skype with me later to see if he can help me facilitate the correction of my wrongdoing. The brilliant Lisa Barrett also rang to offer her support. Phew.
Now to the course specific details. Sarah has asked us in her post to consider the following, great as usual, questions.
We midwifery academics have been exploring this idea of teaching and facilitation with the theories and processes involved in student centred teaching and situation learning as the foundation of our Bachelor of Midwifery curriculum. In our view, student centred learning can be seen as more akin to a facilitation process in that it enables the student to drive the agenda, to learn what they want to learn when they want to learn it. Situated learning involves teaching on the other hand, as that theoretical base takes the position that there are certain required things (skills, competencies, knowledge, behaviours, attitudes etc) that need to be clearly taught, defined and measured so that we can produce competent midwives at the end of the education process. The students will be given information, experiences etc in a building upon knowledge skills etc way, starting with the basics. Testing and assessment is woven into every step of the process, using different modalities, to make sure they embody the new level of knowing, both cognitive and embodied/kinaesthetic (some could say that's the same thing). Students will not be able to progress until they meet the expected standards. We have chosen situated learning theory as the framework, but incorporate student centred and facilitated aspects to their educational program.
Thanks for a good week everyone, and special thanks to Sarah for the course. I'm finding that doing the course is forcing me to take action when otherwise I wouldn't. I look forward to seeing you in the Elluminate room on Friday morning.
The attempt to fix the RSS feed took the majority of time today. Disillusioned, disrupted and despairing, I sent out an SOS on the news group. I've also been very caught up with the politicking on Twitter and found myself reading very interesting, but irrelevant (to my stated tasks!) articles.
Down the rabbit hole I went!
The wonderful Chris Woodhouse has responded in brilliant facilitator fashion and will Skype with me later to see if he can help me facilitate the correction of my wrongdoing. The brilliant Lisa Barrett also rang to offer her support. Phew.
Now to the course specific details. Sarah has asked us in her post to consider the following, great as usual, questions.
- what is online facilitation?
- What skills do you need as an online facilitator?
- 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?
We midwifery academics have been exploring this idea of teaching and facilitation with the theories and processes involved in student centred teaching and situation learning as the foundation of our Bachelor of Midwifery curriculum. In our view, student centred learning can be seen as more akin to a facilitation process in that it enables the student to drive the agenda, to learn what they want to learn when they want to learn it. Situated learning involves teaching on the other hand, as that theoretical base takes the position that there are certain required things (skills, competencies, knowledge, behaviours, attitudes etc) that need to be clearly taught, defined and measured so that we can produce competent midwives at the end of the education process. The students will be given information, experiences etc in a building upon knowledge skills etc way, starting with the basics. Testing and assessment is woven into every step of the process, using different modalities, to make sure they embody the new level of knowing, both cognitive and embodied/kinaesthetic (some could say that's the same thing). Students will not be able to progress until they meet the expected standards. We have chosen situated learning theory as the framework, but incorporate student centred and facilitated aspects to their educational program.
- What is netiquette?
Thanks for a good week everyone, and special thanks to Sarah for the course. I'm finding that doing the course is forcing me to take action when otherwise I wouldn't. I look forward to seeing you in the Elluminate room on Friday morning.
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