Category: events

“This isn’t what I thought it was: community in the network age”

Earlier this year some of my online friends (Val Cortes, Lisa Endersby and Ian Simmie) invited me to be part of a panel they were preparing for  Canadian Association of Colleges and Universities Student Services Conference: Engaging Digital Citizens <http://www.cacuss2012.ca> in Vancouver BC, Canada.  The topic was on communities and learning, building off of some lessons learned from the project the three of them had been doign.

 Abstract
What does it mean to be a member of a community in the digital age? In this session you will begin to explore how student affairs professionals can use available technologies to create vibrant and engaging online communities. Through discussing the SASA Leadership Educators Resource Network (LEARN) online community as a case study and the lessons from the LEARN membership survey, we will explore the creation and facilitation of this and other distributed work, learning, and community groups.

Summary
Developing and maintaining a vibrant and meaningful online community requires purposeful care and nurturing. Many of the tools that student affairs professionals use in their daily practice can be applied to the digital world. In this session, we will review the theory of online community facilitation and we will provide specific group facilitation tools, strategic-planning models and engagement strategies that participants can implement in their own contexts. Finally, we will share the lessons that we have learned as LEARN facilitators and creators. The session will feature a remote presentation with a colleague in Victoria and, potentially, with a Seattle-based consultant and international online group facilitator of distributed work, learning and community groups.

To warm things up, Lisa Endersby wrote this blog post. My job was to add something about this ecosystem of group forms that address the diversity of small groups, individuals, bounded communities and networks. I’m particularly interested in the interplay between communities and the broader networks they live in and “by.”

This was all well and good, except due to my not paying close attention to dates, I was not available to do something live online with them as I was going to be, ironically, driving to Vancouver for Northern Voice and the Online Community Enthusiasts gathering.  So we decided that I’d record a short piece for them to weave into their presentation. This makes life easy for me in terms of preparation, but dang, I sure missed the interaction!

Then the F2F team was going to ask the participants some questions. I’m reposting them here because they continue to be useful questions. Every time I engage in a conversation about communities, communities of practice, networks, groups — whatever form — we run into a lack of clarity of what we are talking about.

  • What is your definition of community?
  • How do you know when/if you are a part of a community? How do you know when/if you aren’t part of one?
  • Can you join an online community (‘obtain a membership’)? What does this look like?
  • What is your first reason/goal for entering an online community?
  • Are there any risks to being part of an online community?
  • What are the benefits of online communities? Which one(s) resonate(s) most with you?

As I prep for some presentations and workshops at KMSingapore next week, these questions remain alive, along with the question “how do we useful work with profusion of networks, groups and communities we MIGHT belong to?” What are the strategic choices and practices? Stay tuned for more…

Maggy Beukes-Amiss on Facilitating Learning Online

This week kicks off e/merge 12, a mostly-online gathering of people who are interested in elearning in Africa. I’m pleased to be moderating a workshop this week exploring changes in online facilitation with four great facilitators. Here is the description. But read on below the quote  for a sneak listen to one of our guests, Maggy Beukes-Amiss from the University of Namibia.

Facilitation of online learning is now into its fifth decade. The familiar web based online  learning environments have only existed since the mid 1990s. Since then we’ve seen radical changes in the technology, pedagogy and range of practices. The boundaries are shifting from closed classrooms, communities and password protected learning management systems to open and networked configurations. So where are we now? We’ll engage in conversation with four experienced facilitators of online learning to hear what they are thinking, and then engage everyone in reflecting on your practices.

Joining us are Maggy Beukes-Amiss, a veteran Namibian online facilitator and trainer of online and blended educators,  Nellie Deutsch, who is an English teacher and an expert in online facilitation, blended online learning, social networking and open education, Gerrit Wissing, a highly experienced instructional designer and trainer of online facilitators, Tony Carr who is an educational technologist and periodic organiser of online conferences, and moderator Nancy White, one of the early explorers of online facilitation.

Maggy Beukes-Amiss: Maggy has been teaching ICT related subjects at the U. of Namibia for over 17 years, including in leadership positions. She has a passion for open source software packages and elearning activities. As a champion for capacity building, we’ll be asking Maggy what her key insights and learnings have been.

Dr. Nellie Deutsch :  Nellie has been teaching English to speakers of other languages since the mid 70s and integrating technology into her classes since the mid 90s. She uses relationship-based, collaborative action learning in facilitating online learning. We’ll be asking Nellie to tell us more about HOW she does this!

Gerrit Wissing: Gerrit is a Senior Instructional Designer at Tshwane University of Technology but also has lived experience in the corporate world as well. He knows the software, he knows the social process side. More importantly, he’s been co facilitating UCT’s Facilitating Online course and e/merge itself, so Gerrit is in the trenches. We’ll be asking Gerrit to share a bit about what he’s learned across all these contexts.

Tony Carr: Tony is an educational technologist, online facilitator and online conference organiser at the Centre for Educational Technology,University of Cape Town. Most of his day to day work is in staff development for teaching with technology. We’ll be asking Tony to share about the opportunities for online communities of practice.

Nancy White: Nancy was one of those people who fell into online interaction in the early days of the web and sought to understand how it related to her offline experiences. She wrote some of the early guidance so we’ll be interested to find out what she thinks is the same today, and what has changed.

Our ending… or really our beginning question will be “what’s next for us as online facilitators?” Have you thought about that? We hope you have and will join us!

Maggy Beukes-Amiss  is on leave this week so I was able to interview here in advance. It was terrific to hear about her practice at the University of Namibia. Her passion is infectious. Her main thrust was that our attitudes are an incredibly important part of our practice. Take a listen:

Part 1 and Part 2

Podsafe music courtesy of Tchakare Kanyembe  – Thanks!

RossViz is Just Around the Corner

The early bird deadline is past, but we are sending out the word at a couple of F2F workshops in the next few weeks and I want this post findable on my (messy, messy) blog.  The time to commit is NOW!  I learned so many new things this year that I want to share. I want to learn from y’all. The folks who have signed up so far are fascinating and a few are far flung! So expect great, diverse interactions. We have a few more spaces available so MAKE YOUR MOVE!

Once again, here are the details:

Michelle Laurie and I are excited to announce the 3rd annual graphic facilitation workshop (aka Rosviz!) in beautiful Rossland, BC, Canada, July 18-20th, 2012. We had so much fun at #1 and #2, we are going for #3! (See Sylvia’s great video from #2 here.)

Drawing on Walls at the 2011 Graphic Facilitation Workshop in Rossland, B.C.

You are invited to this experiential workshop which takes place almost entirely at the drawing surface!

We’ll start the evening of July18th by warming up our drawing muscles and silencing those pesky inner censors. The second day, we’ll build into the basic practices of graphic facilitation and recording. We will pay attention to preparation, the actual visual work, and follow up including digital capture of paper based images. Our third day will be devoted to participatory graphic approaches, practicing and giving peer feedback. You can expect to go away with icons, ideas and approaches which you can use immediately, as well as ideas about how to hone your practice.

When might we use this practice?

Sometimes our imaginations are sparked by a visual where words fail us. Think about when communities plan and imagine their futures, when teams consider the possible outcomes for their projects, when groups create maps to track their progress.  These are all opportunities to use visuals to engage and deepen community dialogue. You can use visual thinking to improve teamwork, communications, meetings, build engagement and to plan work. Step out of the PowerPoint rut!

Who should attend?
Facilitators, project managers, team leaders and members, town planners, teachers and anyone who would like to engage others beyond words.

Please Note: You do NOT need previous experience or have to consider yourself an artist. At some level, we can all draw and use visuals to enhance our communications and engage diverse audiences.

Quick details: Michelle will be hosting and we’ll both be co-facilitating. This 2.5 day workshop begins the evening of Wednesday, July 18th and ends mid-afternoon on Friday, July 20th.  Pricing  is  CA $840.00 thereafter. (US Friends — it is about the same in dollars! If you have/want to pay in dollars, I can take those. NW)  Email Michelle to register: michelle.k.laurie(@)gmail.com.

via Workshop Alert – Rosviz is back! | Michelle Laurie rants and raves.

Northern Voice, Online Community Enthusiasts and Graphicos

It is a crazy, busy spring this year, with many wonderful learning adventures with my clients. More about that later on. But I wanted to get a few events on the radar screen of my North American readers, particularly those of you in the Northwest region.

Canada’s favorite blogging-cum-social media gathering, Northern Voice, is coming up the 15th and 16th of June in Vancouver, BC. I’m happy to say I’m going to get into trouble and co-instigate a session related to risk taking and improvisation the the irrepressible Alan Levine and Rob Cottingham. For a bit, I had lost the description we had submitted and I thought, “well, we’ll just improvise.!” 😉 But Alan reminded me our conversation was in Skype, so I grabbed the transcript. Here it is… maybe you have some ideas and suggestions?

 

The poet Guillaume Apollinaire wrote:
Come to the edge, he said.
They said: We are afraid.
Come to the edge, he said.
They came.
He pushed them… and they flew.

Perfection. Bah. Certainty? You’re crazy. Our participation in the (social) world cannot be predicated by “looking good” or having a perfect plan if we are to move our learning and our practices forward. The opportunity in the moment is a rich space. So prepare to be surprised. Plan and then go with the flow, even if that means abandoning your plans. Come play with Alan, Rob and Nancy (plus our richly surprising networks) as we explore the role of improvisation in our online lives. Heck, offline too. Why not? Come jump off the cliff.
Bios:
Nancy White
Alan Levine
Rob Cottingham
Three crazy people who love to leap and learn. And learn and leap. And have fun.

I also raised my hand to help co-organize the open space part of the event, fondly called “Moose Camp” with the equally irrepressible Brian Lamb. Can you spell F-U-N? Michelle Laurie, Giulia Forsythe and I will be hosting one session for visual practitioners (aka graphicos) at Moose Camp. I love the invitation to create what suggests itself in the moment. This seems consistent with our “formal” session offering. Kind of ironic, eh?

The day before (June 14th), my amazingly productive and generative colleague Sylvia Currie hosts the annual Online Community Enthusiast’s gathering where we will be thinking together about the practice of designing and facilitating online meetings — among other things. It is great that this is piggy-backing up against Northern Voice. Again, this is an event YOU can come to as well!

So if you are in the neighborhood, JOIN US! I promise it will be fun and rewarding. Honest! Bring your pens, chalk, ipads, cameras, but above all, bring your SELF!

Social Speech Podcast from Rob Cottingham

Rob Cottingham is always coming up with cool new stuff. He is the first person I knew to create cartoons about social media. He was one of the first people I graphically recorded “up front” (instead of from the back) at NorthernVoice a few years back (sadly, the video is now gone but you can see the images here). So when he invited me to be his first guest on the Social Speech Podcast, I had to say yes. Here are the deets:

The social web has gone a long way toward changing what it means to be in the audience at a speech – making an audience member less a passive spectator listening to a monologue, and more an active participant in a conversation among peers.

Nancy WhiteAnd nobody does that quite like Nancy White – except she doesn’t just rely on digital technology. She’s one of the best group facilitators in the business, working all over the world with everyone from small community groups to Fortune 500 companies. You can see her approach at work in the March of Dimes’ Share Your Story site, which several years on is still one of the examples we cite the most often of how online community can make a real different in people’s lives.

So who better to kick off Episode 1 of the Social Speech podcast? (Graphic: A quick sketch I (Rob)  did of Nancy at Northern Voice a few years ago.)

 

Thanks, Rob!

You can download the podcast on Rob’s site.