Category: online interaction | Page 26

Exploring the place between boundaries in communities and networks

the spaces between the scoring spaces In her PhD work, Lilia Efimova has been one of my teachers and thought partners, starting from the summer she spent with my family here in Seattle while doing a fellowship at Microsoft Research. In the post Blog as Edge Zone, Lilia gets to the heart of what has been drawing me lately in my thinking and slow, personal research.

…blogging supports creating relations with unknown and unexpected others, often across various boundaries.

While many of us struggle to define “community” or “network” or “group” I keep on getting the sense that the important changes, fundamental changes in the way those of us online live our lives, are happening in the margins in between and across boundaries. Yes, we belong to tight bounded communities and broad reaching networks. But it is how we navigate across them, and connect, disconnect and reconnect with ideas, content and people in those transversing practices.

Lilia has done a great job of describing what I have been “sensing” from the perspectives of blogs. I think there are similar things we can describe around different online interaction tools and the practices associated with them. We can examine this from the quintessential change these tools and practices create in our ability to “be together.”

In February, Barbara Ganley, Laura Blankenship and I will be exploring this with a session we’re offering at Northern Voice. We will dance the limbo, talk about being in limbo and look for patterns for making the most of this boundary crossing and all the unnamed places in between.

I had hoped to write more about this, but lately work keeps me away from that loose time I need to write these things. So this is a little bookmarker out to the world.

Let’s think together.

Online Communities Mini-Conferences

Passing this along from Leigh Blackall…This is a terrific set of “mini-events” around a variety of online community and collaboration topics. NOT TO BE MISSED!

Participants in the Facilitating Online Communties course have come together to coordinate an online mini conference. Below are the range of events scheduled so far. Keep an eye on the conference wiki for up to the minute details. See you there!

A mini conference for Facilitating Online

From Facilitating online communities
Date: 2 – 9 November 2008
All times are in Coordinated Universal Time (UTC) unless stated otherwise. Use this time convertor to work out your times.

2-9Nov Community Leadership Development

Title: Community Leadership Development – review and feedback

Date: online discussion

Duration: throughout the conference period

Facilitators: Valerie Taylor with guests and friends

Venue: blog posts, discussion page threads

Description: Community Leadership Development – online, open education and skills development for individuals and groups working with community-based organizations to provide leadership training, needs assessment and planning, coordination and management of projects to benefit the community.

As Community Leadership Development is a new course modeled on FOC08 and CCK08, participants in the FOC08 Mini Conferences are uniquely qualified to provide input, feedback and suggestions.

Throughout the Mini Conference, questions about the content and the process for the course will be posted for review and comment. Summaries and links to contributions will be posted each day.

Questions, offers of collaboration welcome.

2-9Nov Managing Multimembership in Social Networks

Title: SCoPE seminar discussion: Managing Multimembership in Social Networks: Oct 27-Nov 9, 2008

Facilitators: Bronwyn Stuckey, Jeffrey Keefer, Sue Wolff, Sylvia Currie

Description: How do you track and keep up with blog conversations? How do you manage your time as you engage in social networks? What are our limits as we integrate social learning into our work environments? When you do find yourself becoming disconnected from your networks and organized activities, how do you return to the fray? As facilitators how do you manage multimembership for your participants?

Many of us confess to fumbling along and we engage in multiple networks. Yet, many networks are essential for the projects, sectors and people that we work with, and for staying abreast of hot issues. Multi-membership and multi-platform overload is becoming a BIG challenge!

During this 2-week discussion we invite you to share tips for managing participation in social networks. This seminar is organized as part of the Facilitating Online Communities course mini-conference. There are many ways to participate! Take our survey, leave a Voice Thread, and join the asynchronous discussion.

Venue: SCoPE is an open, online community supported by BCcampus and hosted by Simon Fraser University. Membership is free and open to the public and our discussions are facilitated by volunteers. Access the seminar discussion directly.

Planning for the event: A record of our planning steps is on a subsequent wiki page: /multimembership

5Nov-7pm The Role of an Online Facilitator

Date: 7pm on Wednesday 5th November UTC (8am on Thursday 6th NovemberNZ DST) Check the time in your zone.

Duration: approximately 1 hour

Facilitator: Vida Thompson

Venue: Skype (contact skype user: vidathompson in advance to join this session)

Description I recorded an interview with a Community Facilitator here in Alexandra, Central Otago, New Zealand. For the mini conference I would like participants to listen to the inteview and then discuss their perception of the role of an online facilitator and how that compares to the role of a face to-face community facilitator. This discussion will be held on skype on Wednesday 5th November at 7pm UTC. (Contact skype user: vidathompson in advance to join this session).

All interested people are welcome to attend. It would be good if participants could listen to the interview before the event. Note: The interview does take a while to start as I edited the beginning out.

Please contact Vida Thompson in skype prior to the event so you can be included in the event when it starts (contact skype user: vidathompson or by e-mail address:vidat@tekotago.ac.nz) There is a limit of 9 participants who can talk but no limit to the chat contributions.

5Nov 9pm Interview About Second Life in Second Life

Title: About Second Life

Date: Wednesday 05 Nov UTC at 9.00pm (Thursday 06 Nov 10.00 am New Zealand Time)

Duration: 30 Minutes

Facilitator: Grant Comber (aka Avatar: Clinty Inglewood)

Venue: Explorer Island in Second Life

How to get there? Click on this SLurl Link and then click on the Teleport Now button to zoom to Explorer Island. The Second Life Grid coordinates for the Venue are 195,208,22 (PG) Your Host Clinty Inglewood will meet you.

Reminder: Min computer specs – RAM: 500mb (preferably 1 Gig) Chip speed: 800 MHz Pentium III or better, Screen 1024×768 pixels Internet Connection: Cable/DSL Microphone/headset needed for Chatting

Description:An interview between newbie Grant Comber (Clinty Inglewood) and seasoned Second Life user Harold Atkinson (Hat Carter). General questions on the use of Second Life and sharing of unique experiences. Opportunity for all avatars in FOC to gain some insight into using Second Life especially those who are newbies like Grant!

So if you want to philosophize, go didactic on us or just talk some technical turkey issues please pop in for this casual interview.

My thanks to our guest Harold Atkinson who is a fellow teaching colleague of mine with much Second Life experience. See you there! Signing Off: Clinty Inglewood

6Nov-8am Stigmergic Collaboration: The Evolution of Group Work

Facilitated by: Daryl Cook with guest Dr. Mark Elliott.

Mark completed a PhD in 2007 that developed theoretical frameworks for collective activity and mass collaboration in conjunction with a number of real-world projects and now runs a consultancy that provides services surrounding online collaboration and social media / web2.0. In our meeting, Mark will assist us to explore:

Stigmergic collaboration as a means of explaining how co-ordination is achieved in ad hoc, massively scaled collaborative contexts (i.e. Wikis)
How we can, as facilitators, use Wikis to collaborate, share and learn
His experiences from the Future Melbourne project — the world’s first, wiki-based, collaborative city plan.

The one hour session, will include a very brief presentation, but will mostly be informal and conversational. Definitely no Powerpoint.

Please join us!

DATE: Thursday 6th November 2008 at 7PM EST or check the time in your time zone.

VENUE: Join this online event at the Elluminate Meeting Room

Beforehand, please ensure that you computer is ready to use the web conferencing software (Elluminate).

RSVP: daryl.cook@gmail.com

ENQUIRIES: For any enquiries and/or for any assistance with Elluminate, do not hesitate to contact me.

6 Nov-10pm International Online Collaboration Group meets FOC08

Title International Online Collaboration Group

Date and Duration – UTC Thursday 6 November 10pm-11pm UTC (Friday 7 November 9am – 10am East Australia time)
Facilitators: Kerry Trabinger (CIT Australia) and Leigh
Description

This is a FANTASTIC opportunity for the group to meet with teachers who are currently completing a subject called Facilitating Learning Online in Australia. Come and discuss your experiences. Topics will include: – Introductions (where are you from and what area are you teaching in) – Virtual Classrooms – Do you like this platform? Will you use it with your students? Why or Why not? Any tips on using these platforms. – Time Management – How does your Institute allocate time for online delivery? Is it the same as for face to face? – Marketing – how can you get students or participants to join in an online dicussion or virtual classroom session? PLUS you have a chance to try a different virtual classroom platform.

Venue – VET VIRTUAL (a virtual classroom used in Australia VET Sector – www.vetvirtual.com)

6Nov-1030pm TLC (Think, Learn & Create) Using Mind Maps

Title: TLC Using Mind Maps (TLC – Think, Learn & Create) – Online Discussion, followed by Presentation, – Friday 7 Nov 2008 11.30 am – 12noon NZ DST (10.30 pm – 11 pm Thursday 6 Nov UTC)

Facilitators: Kay Lewis and Elaine Dittert

Description:

Have you had difficulty keeping up with the ‘overload of information’ during this course?
Got confused or lost by trying to view all the discussion threads?
Have you jotted down some thoughts and ideas you’ve read and heard but by the time you’re ready to go over your notes they make no sense?

If this sounds like you, this 30 minute session may be just what you need. It is designed to give you some pointers to help you gather and organise large amounts of data and provide a clear overview, analyse your thoughts, identify problem solving ideas and generate more ideas with clarity, efficiency and accuracy.

We plan to have one special guest speaker:

Jennifer Goddard, BBus (Admin), Master of Entrepreneurship and Innovation, Master Trainer in Buzan Advanced Learning Techniques, inspirational Director of the Buzan Centre in Australia and New Zealand and co-founder of Mindwerx International. OR
Jennie Vickers, Buzan Licensed Instructor (senior advanced coach), Masters of Management, Diploma in Business Administration (University of Auckland), BA Law (Honours). Jennie is also an Alumni of the Leadership NZ Programme.

Venue: From your feedback in the discussion here [1], we will use 24/7 Meeting Room (Elluminate) or Skype to host the presentation.

7Nov-4PM EST Storytelling

Title: Storytelling

Date: November 7, 2008 at 4PM EST or check the time in your time zone.

Duration: 60 minutes ?

Facilitators:

See list

Venue:

Join the event on WiZiQ
Join the event on Connecting Online.

Description:

Do you think of stories when you look at a photo, a video, or listen to music? Does the topic interest you as a tool for instruction and learning or are you just curious? In any case, for whatever reason you may have, you are invited to join this storytelling mini conference.

We will have a live storytelling event on WiZiQ or Elluminate. Please refer to the main page of Connecting Online for further discussions on the topic.

Further Information

Storytelling Mini Conference

Please add your name to the list and/or ask questions here.

8Nov-Midnight Heart2Heart Online

Title: Heart2Heart Online

Date: Tentatively Saturday, November 8, 2008 00:00 UTC Time

Duration: 90 minutes

Venue: TBA (Skype, Elluminate Meeting Room or WiZiQ)

Group Size: Maximum of 8 people

Facilitator: Greg Barcelon assisted by partner Ivy (guest)
A place where we can simply be ourselves… sharing ourselves at a deeper level without the fear of condemnation, unsolicited advice, interruption or being judged.

Traditionally we got this deep level of connectedness with our true selves, and assist others in doing the same, from our families. But, with many people experiencing difficulties in their family life today, we need communities that can become “Schola Amoris,” a School of Love, in which all learn to first of all accept themselves as they are, and then in a greater way accept others unconditionally – the greatest yearning we collectively have.
More about it here.

TBA Connecting Online in Developing Countries

Connecting Online in Developing Countries

Title: Connecting Online in Developing Countries

Date: Saturday November 8, 2008 at: See your time zone, please.

Duration: 60 min?

Faciliatator: Joy Zhao & guest speakers

Venue: WiZi or 24/7 Meeting Room

Description: to be updated…

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Posted By Leigh Blackall to Facilitating Online Communities at 11/05/2008 10:08:00 AM

Getting used to online interfaces

We are into our second week of the FAO/CGIAR Knowledge Sharing workshop (the first, online phase of 4+ weeks) and I was struck by a conversation in one of our mentors learning logs (we each have a space for journaling.) Alexandra (who logs in as Maria Jorge) has come back after taking the first version of this workshop earlier this year to be a mentor. Joined in this conversation copied (with permission) below, is Michael, another past participant returning as a mentor, and Gauri, who moved from past participant to co-facilitator!

Maria Jorge – Friday, 5 September 2008, 03:57 AM
Hi all,
I think this second time (I participated already in the first KS) I am more excited about interacting with people and benefit from their experiences… I also want to browse through the moodle and learn a few extra tools. I hope to have time over the weekend to explore this more.
I like the new look of the moodle! The idea of having the list of facilitators and participants timezone and city all together is great, it gives a sense of group, of ‘room’ where everybody is together. Thanks for the improvement!
Great to see so much enthusiasm and interaction already!
Nancy White – Friday, 5 September 2008, 03:55 PM
I’m giggling, Alexandra, because I don’t think we changed much at all in the moodle. In fact we exported everything from the old workshop, reinstalled it here, then just pulled out the old discussions!! What seems different?
Michael Riggs – Sunday, 7 September 2008, 09:41 PM
Alexandra, I felt the same way! I liked the “new and improved” Moodle site for KS2 when I first logged in last week. It seems much easier to get around. So much so I went back to the KS1 site to see what had changed … and realized, as Nancy says, not much! I guess the site became more familiar through the process of KS1 than I had realized, and now navigating around seems quite straightforward. Chalk one up to experience.
Maria Jorge – Monday, 8 September 2008, 02:19 AM
Hi Michael,
Thanks for sharing your impressions too, so I do not feel so weird… I guess we learn more than we realized and some issues become ‘naturally’ familiar without us noticing. I think that the idea of a week zero (i.e. extra time to browse around without much extra commitment) was good (I don’t remember this in the first KS but perhaps there was that too and I do not remember…? I started a bit late so perhaps is that what I missed then?
Regards
Alexandra
Nancy White – Monday, 8 September 2008, 10:58 AM
I would love to “quote” this conversation on my blog if you two would be comfortable. It is a PERFECT example of what changes when we get used to a tool and it starts to disappear into the background.
Alexandra, you are right, “week 0” is new. Remember that first call in the first workshop where we tried to both cover the technology and begin substantive conversations? It was a MESS!!!
Gauri Salokhe – Monday, 8 September 2008, 12:22 PM
I can only second what you both have observed. The second time around it does seem easier to use and navigate. In terms of main page (central part) there is one difference – we have tried to put all the weeks’ main activities right at the top. In week 1, we only have week 1 related information and week 0 information is removed and placed elsewhere. In my case, this helps me navigate the space better.
What I also observed is that as a participant, the constant flow of emails seemed overwhelming but as a facilitator I am excited that there is so much happening, especially happy to see that there is so much interaction between participants and everyone trying to help each other.
Maria Jorge
Nancy, you can use our conversation for your blog. No problem!
Michael Riggs – Tuesday, 9 September 2008, 01:41 AM
That is OK with me Nancy.

Two things surface for me here.

Use over time should make things easier. As we master a new interface (no matter how difficult or simple) it should fade into the background so we focus on interaction and content. Design has a lot to do with how fast this happens, as does frequency of use and individual preferences.
Our role impacts are experience of the platform or tool. Obviously when we design something, we have deep familiarity. But when we have a specific role, we approach the platform with different eyes. Facilitator, mentor, participant, designer. So not only does this harken back to my old saw “designed for a group, experienced by an individual,” but it suggests that we may adapt faster if we have a specific role to play.

What do you think?

Edit on Wednesday – Gauri shared some of her reflections on her blog. And I continue to ponder this not only from a “workshop” perspective, but from an ongoing communities of practice perspective.

Onramps to online engagement

Rambly post alert – this one hops all over the place with little regard to coherence.

My friend Mark Hammersley reminded me a few months ago of a tool to help surface intercultural issues and build trust in distributed teams. One was Thiagi’s Multicultural Email Game. (Mark notes it is also included in the “Building Trust in Teams” toolkit, PDF for free or you can buy the book, published by Oxfam www.oxfam.org.uk) I have not used this game and would like to try it – and not just at a F2F meeting, but try it online. It could be tricky because it actually asks participants to trust the process of the game right from the start. But the idea of a game appeals to me, not only for trust building, but as an on-ramp to engagement. Michele Martin shares some of her favorite ice breakers (mostly F2F) which are another way of initiating engagement. Check the comments on the post for more ideas.

So why am I focusing on onramps to engagement today? Two reasons. The first is I’m a guest in a South African workshop on elearning for educators in higher education and almost ALL of their questions have to do with engagement. Most often, “how do I get people to post on discussion boards.” They are also dealing with huge cohorts that blow my mind. How does engagement scale? Wow. I’ll have to save that for another post.

The second reason engagement is top of mind is because I was Skyping with a colleague who is facing challenges getting some organizational partners to participate in a discussion forum. In our conversation we talked about three big barriers. Maybe they will stimulate you to contribute some more issues and ideas.

Why are we talking about discussion forums?

Engagement is an issue with all tools. Tools are the medium to achieve our purpose. It just so happens today people were talking about discussion forums. It is still critical to ask the question “why are we using discussion forums.” Again, I won’t go into that today. So let’s take it as a given just for fun, ok?

Barrier 1: No Shared Context for Learning Together

One of the possible barriers we identified was the different cultural contexts for sharing work in progress as a way of learning. I have found that people often think what they observe and experience won’t have value to others. That their stuff, their “work in progress” is not ‘good enough.’ So one suggestion is to create an example or trial run, and wrap it in an invitation that has relevance and value to the participants. To role model the value of thinking together while working, not just when we are done. This begins to help us see where we have shared and different contexts and how these can add to, not subtract, from our learning.

For example, recruit 2 people from the group – one who is willing to share her workplan (this is what is under discussion) and another to interview the first person with you, the facilitator. Prior to posting, spend some time with person one to see if they need any help preparing the document and give them some feedback about the value of the work. There is always value, trust me. But sometimes we are blind to our own learning and strengths. Then spend some time with the interviewer brainstorming questions. DON’T practice the interview. I find that often saps the life out of things. But prep the initial questions and give tips on how to interview and dig down for the gems rather than just coasting on the surface.

Then create an invitation to the rest of the group to a time delimited interaction. In this example, it is on a discussion forum due to bandwidth limitations. In the invitation, use language that is relevant to the participants interests and needs, such as “come participate in a peer interview with Person 1 and Person 2 where we’ll mine for the gems in a work plan. Get ideas and different perspectives on the work plan process.”

After this interview, do a quick debrief. What did people learn? What did they like about the process? Not like or make them feel uncomfortable. This can surface both focus, technological and cultural issues. Adjust and then encourage others to take a turn their your plans and getting valuable peer feedback.

The debrief, as was cited in the Email Game link above, is the critical part. Without this you have no feedback to adjust and improve. Without the reflection on the process, many of the participants may speed past their own learning and the possibilities of the conversations and learning with others. The “I don’t have time to post on discussion boards.”

Barrier 2: Technology

Wait, I said we were taking forums as a given for this post? Well… maybe not, eh? I work a lot in international contexts where there is little bandwidth equality. Or even electricity parity. Some members are lucky to get online on a patchy dial-up once a week, while others are always on with broadband. A portal or forum tool may just not cut it when it takes 20 minutes to download a page – and worse when that page has no value. Organizations sometimes deny this, but it is real and the sooner we adjust our strategies, the better. So one of the suggestions we talked about on our Skype chat today was the bridging of technologies, specifically text on mobile phones to alert or focus on key web based interactions. It is probably not yet realistic to replace all web interactions – not everyone has web enabled mobiles, but this linkage with the commonly shared tool of mobile phones recognizes the realities of those with less web access and includes them more fully. It is easier to say yes to a text than that 20-minute loading page. So the message to organizations who insist that everything happens on their portal should look again. Rethink the centralized strategy because it is not inclusive in many cases.

Barrier #3: Organizational Foo

Finally, we come to the fun stuff. The elephants in the room. Our own organizational blinders and shortcomings. For example, funders have power over their grantees, so grantees do what they need to to “tick the box” but do they feel ownership of their learning in an experience with a funder, or beholden to the learning agenda of the funder? What real and meaningful roles are available to people? What ownership? Like the tool choices above, the power of the convenor can stifle the engagement of everyone else, especially if their power is disproportionate.

To address these issues, we have to look inward to our organizations and ask the hard questions about our values, how we lead and follow, how we prioritize our time and what we ask of others. If we are asking our colleagues to participate in a web based interaction, we should not dare to refuse to participate ourselves. If we choose technologies that are for our convenience, we should also struggle to master those that are convenient for others. It is a two way street.

Broader issues: Training, Performance Support and Learning

So now, this spreads out to something I’ve been following others on – how we think about learning in the workplace. Is it training? Is it performance support? Is it formal or informal learning? Or better, what should we be pulling out of the bag when? This actually links back to the question, why are we seeking engagement?Yes, for learning, but for what? Why? For whom? Are we being strategic? Are we deluding ourselves that people have time for these distributed, online learning conversations in the first place? Purpose is always first and foremost, but we still slide by it with vague answers. Or we forge ahead with training, performance support or communities of learning and practice without asking about purpose.

If our purpose is clear, then what is the relationship and strategy around training, PS and learning? Too many questions and it is time to go make dinner. How was that for an easy out? 😉

Other people blogging/thinking out loud about this:

Edited to correct some bad spelling boo boos

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