Month: May 2009

Facilitating Online Curriculum

faconlinetonyI’m thrilled to learn that the great work of Tony Carr and his colleagues at the Centre for Educational Technology, University of Cape Town in South Africa is up and online. They recently  completed the Facilitating Online: a course leaders guide (PDF here.). A few years ago I said to Tony that I really had not done a good job keeping my resources up to date and I wanted to “open source” them but in a way where others would build upon and improve them. Tony took me at my word and grabbed my stuff. He connected with the All Things in Moderation folks in the UK for their frameworks. Then with Shaheeda Jaffer and Jeanne Smuts, they created the guide. Now it is up and available to all of us. Here are the details:

Facilitating Online is a course intended for training educators as online facilitators of fully online and mixed mode courses. The Centre for Educational Technology (CET) produced a Course Leader’s Guide as an Open Educational Resource to assist educators and trainers who wish to implement a course on online facilitation within their institution or across several institutions. The guide contains the course model, week-by-week learning activities, general guidance to the course leader on how to implement and customise the course and specific guidelines on each learning activity.

See Facilitating Online: A guide for course leaders for a pdf version of the course manual as well the specimen course site.

Congratulations Tony. And thanks for keeping it in the accessible, public domain as well. That matters!

Webheads in Action Online unConvergence

Webheads in Action announces their WiAOC 2009:  Webheads in Action Online unConvergence, May 22-24, 2009. I’m not sure what an unConvergence is… I was kind of hopeing we’d have moments of convergence, but divergence is also good, eh?

I’ll be on (via Elluminate)  tomorrow,  Friday, May 22  at 15:00 GMT (that’s 8am PDT) talking about technology stewardship. (slides below.) You can find all the details on the organizational Wiki: http://wiaoc09.pbwiki.com.

Participation is FREE, but they encourage people to register on their Ning site.  http://webheadsinaction.ning.com. All organizers and presenters are volunteers.

Digital Habitats for Webheads in Action Online 09

View more presentations from Nancy White.

Edited: Audio and chat log can be found here.

Tools for Catalyzing Collaboration

Eugene Eric Kim of Blue Oxen Associates pinged me today about an offering coming up that looks really juicy. It resonates a bit with some of the workshops I’ve been doing with clients. I love that he is mixing tools with process and fundamental views about participation.  I’m really interested in learning more about the “conceptual framework.”  Sounds like technology stewardship!!

blueoxenThe workshop starts next week, and the application deadline is Monday, so if this looks interesting, jump in! And tell us how it was.  (I am facilitating a bit too intensely the next three weeks to fully commit to another workshop – but I was sorely tempted!)

Blue Oxen Associates » Tools for Catalyzing Collaboration: June 2009
There are an overwhelming number of online tools that promise to help you collaborate more effectively. How do you know which ones are right for you? How do you tailor those tools for your organization? And most importantly, how do you use these tools most effectively?

Blue Oxen Associates principal, Eugene Eric Kim, will be leading an intensive, four week online workshop that explores these questions. In this workshop, you will:

* Develop a conceptual framework for how to think about, evaluate, and apply online tools and social media to your work.
* Get real, hands-on experience with several of these tools.

You will be working with your fellow participants in a Blue Oxen Collaboratory, where you will have the opportunity to play with tools such as microblogs and Wikis for real learning and collaboration. At the end of this workshop, you will understand how to think strategically about online tools, even as they continually and rapidly evolve.

Topics

* Patterns of high-performance collaboration
* Identity, trust, and reputation
* Strategies for effective communication and knowledge sharing
* Specific tools include:
o Email, mailing lists, and online forums
o Teleconferences and shared screens
o Social Media / Web 2.0
o Wikis
o Blogs
o Microblogs

There are a number of other online tools available for catalyzing collaboration, and we will not even attempt to cover all of them. However, this course will help you develop fundamental skills that will apply to all online collaborative tools.

What is also interesting is that Eugene is doing “pay what you feel it is worth.” I’ve been very interested in this model, but a bit timid to try it.

My Spring Online Reading

CC image on flickr by seenyarita This spring I decided to try and get back into a regular blogging practice. You may have noticed this in February, March and part of April. Then I fell back off the wagon when sunny spring weather lured me outdoors for garden projects. I have no regrets.

There are still tons of interesting things I have read and “intended” to blog about. But the river flows on and it is silly to think I’ll get around to it, so here is a little link love to all the links I saved in April and May (so far) that, if time and priorities were different, I’d point to and write about. Pick one link. Maybe you’ll hit a gold mine! Later I’ll share some of the books I’ve read. Yes, shocking, BOOK! On PAPER!

Photo by SeenyaRita

Digital Identity Workbook for NPO/NGO Folks

some digital identitiesMy friend and colleague, Shirley Williams, pointed me to a great resource on digital identity (DI) that she and her colleagues created for their students at Reading University in the UK.  It is called “This Is Me.”

As I saw that lovely Creative Commons license on it, I thought I’d whip up a version for folks interested in social media and the digital identity implications in the non profit and NGO sectors. I thought it would be handy in an upcoming workshop I’m facilitating for the CGIAR starting next week.

Pat Parslow and Shirley uploaded a version to a Google doc. We edited, I did some rewrites and trims, and here is the first draft. I’d love feedback!

thisisme-ngo-v11

(updated to latest version on Thursday, May 21)
(Edited September 7 – there is now a version in Arabic here via the Social Media Exchange)

(Edited August 21, 2012 – file link has been repaired and there is a new Student version coming out in September!)