story of an online course "facilitating online"
DESCRIPTION
This is the story of an open online course "Facilitating Online", developed by Leigh Blackall and Bronwyn Hegarty, and currently facilitated by myself. The 2009 version of the course can be found here: http://en.wikiversity.org/wiki/Facilitating_Online And discussion about the course can be found here: http://sarah-stewart.blogspot.com/2010/01/working-out-difference-between-teaching.html and http://sarah-stewart.blogspot.com/2009/12/facilitating-online-2009-evaluation.htmlTRANSCRIPT
“Facilitating Online” – the story of an
open, online course
Sarah StewartCreative Commons BY
Otago Polytechnic, New Zealandhttp://sarah-stewart.blogspot.com
http://www.flickr.com/photos/88927846@N00/3016905349
Facilitating Online
http://en.wikiversity.org/wiki/Facilitating_Online
Acknowledgements:Leigh Blackall and Bronwyn HegartyLeigh Blackall and Bronwyn Hegarty
Open
http://www.flickr.com/photos/luchilu/2088202973
Formal and Informal Enrolment
http://www.flickr.com/photos/82312837@N00/514250207 http://www.flickr.com/photos/50751757@N00/4052258202
All material created under a Creative Commons license - can be shared,
copied and re-mashed
http://www.flickr.com/photos/55943778@N00/3640360845
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Blank_map_world_gmt_%28simplified%29.svg
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:New_Zealand_map.PNG
Some of the countries students came from
formal students
formal students who completed
informal students
informal students who completed
informal students who became formal
2004* 9 6 0 0 0
2005* 19 10 0 0 0
2006* 13 10 0 0 0
2007 13 7 2 2 2
2008 9 7 80 6 0
2009 15 13 24 1 0
*Course was ‘closed’ in BlackBoard
Curriculum • Aimed to explore “facilitation” & how to do it in the online context over 19 weeks• Learning based on regular
activities• Introduced to technologies & how they could be used to facilitate learning
http://www.flickr.com/photos/50115004@N00/2915797223
How we delivered the course
• Wiki - course outline & planning of mini conference
• Blog – weekly comments, summaries and news
• Email group• Synchronous weekly meetings in Elluminate,
mix of formal and informal
http://www.flickr.com/photos/18305489@N00/1079099183
Facilitation
• Frequent contact - regular phone calls
• Text reminders for meetings
• Evening meetings
• Flexible
• Summaries of
discussions
in course blog
http://www.flickr.com/photos/90935137@N00/351684037
Assessment • Three assessments
– Reflective blog
– Plan an online event (synchronous or asynchronous)
– Evaluate an event
• Marking carried out by loose rubric
http://www.flickr.com/photos/15879717@N00/4271227025
Mini Conference• Presentations in
Elluminate, Skype, DimDim and Wiziiq
• Asynchronous discussion and video using YouTube and blog
• Topics: eLearning,
Twitter, developing a
PLN, technology for
non-profits, blogging in kindergarten…
http://www.flickr.com/photos/37912375174@N01/38817024
Feedback from students • The online event was main learning
• Blogging is great tool for reflection - students realized that at end of the course
• Appreciated support of the class learning community
• More practice with technology
http://www.flickr.com/photos/79089269@N00/107672309
Challenges for students • Chaos of technology,
especially if new to online communication
• Working out how follow what’s going on
• Not enough ‘theory’ about how to facilitate
• Workload• Technology – skills
and access• Course was too long
http://www.flickr.com/photos/95272747@N00/110775662
What I enjoyed
• Watching self-organisation of participants
• Discussions that were driven by students
• Involvement of informal students
• Mini-conference - diversity of subjects,
speakers,
communication tools
Teaching or Facilitation?
http://www.flickr.com/photos/83955435@N00/5484879
http://www.flickr.com/photos/ghindo/1739299123/
Where to from here?
• More of a ‘generic’ focus…not just for educators
• More emphasis on how to facilitate as opposed to the technology
• How to work with people who are unfamiliar with technology?
http://www.flickr.com/photos/61779926@N00/169747741