Reflections from my first serious online event

BuildingabstractToday I got rid of 400 or so folders, organised a GIG of files and proceeded one more step along the road to having my files sorted, which at the moment are over 40 GIG, down from 100.  I discovered an old report I wrote on my first serious online workshop, written in week 2-3 of the 6 weeks.  Quotes/extracts follow and with some reflections in Green.

A report and some reflections (about 6 years ago)

I had two goals in taking part in this workshop.  Besides finding out more about (stuff) from the content and ideas, I was also interested in an immersion experience, and to find out much more about myself in the online environment.

There is quite a comprehensive document that describes the structure of the workshop, but in actual fact much more unfolded as the weeks progress(ed).

In actual fact: nothing in mere written form could have prepared me for the roller coaster ride to come – and some of what was there, I didn’t believe.

The first week, was in typical Gilly Salmon stage one mode, – icebreaking, when we played an absolutely marvellous game which I won’t spoil by commenting on.

I’ve since come to collect ideas for icebreakers.  The best ones actually work even if you have ‘done them’ before, and help stretch while getting used to the toys we play with.

I was absolutely astounded by how quickly I found a sense of comradeship and online connection emerging.

(Facilitator) has these little phrases, many of them metaphoric which he uses at times, not so much to answer questions, but to help shape the discussion.

Metaphor is powerful online.
Shaping is a considered term here: not firect, not close off . . .

The second week, we were put into two groups, where basically we were to share ideas, theories and information about being on line.

I was assigned the group.  I often wondered if I was placed intentionally by some deeply thoughtful process, randomly assigned or just matched up on some basis like timezone.
We could visit thje other group, but not post.
But people commented in their group on posts made in the other group.
Like a couple of group blogs really.

(Facilitator) was responsible for this, and he heavily fascilitated, but again with a quite remarkable tone and voice to his posts.

I later discovered the ideas of voice, and our online persona in some of the literature.

What have I learned -

Webairportpicture(snip – bits removed here . . . ) Another aspect that has probably been my third significant transcendent experience, has been a growing awareness of the power of story.  The richness of even a few paragraphs of description, has contributed a lot to the whole tone of this workshop.

Absolutely critical.  Along with metaphor, images and poetry.  But within limits.  Insights from a case study of one need to be carefully filtered.  “I used Flickr and it was crap”  Determining a form of truth from experience is to be treated carefully.
But somehow story unlocks.

Another thing that has interested me is how much it has affected me emotionally.

The keenness to get online, the anxious wait for a response to my post, my question or my suggestion. . .
I also had three seriously rugged experieinces in this workshop, and I cringed for months when I recalled these.  Even the best faciltiation and good structure could not prevent this.
Resilience is needed online at times.

THAT’S IT -I think I had a second report from later, but it is unfindable at the moment.

August 10th, 2008 | Tags: | Category: Communities, Events 08, Storytelling | Leave a comment

Facilitatior or Teacher?? (Part One)

The debate still unresolved.

Probably won’t ever be. From Leigh:

As I teach and facilitate various online courses this year, a lot of the theories and concepts I subscribe to are getting some hard testing. The biggest challenge I am finding is the expectation for a teacher or instructor while everyone talks about a facilitator. I don’t think someone can be both, primarily because a teacher inherits a significant amount of power and traditional roles that counter act the more neutral and passive presence of a facilitator. This post will be a series of thoughts about this tension, and some ideas on how I can better manage my attempts at online learning community facilitation.

There’s a teacher at the party

I find it is all too easy to assume the role of a teacher if you are an expert in your field, but very difficult to adopt and maintain the role of facilitator to a group studying your field.

There is this fascinating thread in the list supporting the Facilitate Online Communities course

Two extracts:

Bron: this is our test of the group email. can you please tell the group about
your idea of a good time. This is a warm up so everyone can see how this
group email works.

Leigh: can you tell me/us how me telling everyone what I think makes up
a good time is going to help me/us understand how to facilitate online
learning communities better and quickly?

And from Bron’s Blog: [facilitatingonlinecommunities.blogspot.com]

Some questions: Why is this course called facilitate online learning communities and not teach online learning communities? Is teaching and facilitation really interchangeable? Is facilitation simply one of many techniques that a teacher employs in their work? Or is teaching just one of many 3rd party services that a facilitator might call on in their work? Is it possible to be both a teacher and a facilitator within the same group of people? What are the differences in the roles and what are the social dynamics in play when they function?

Follow on thoughts . . .

Sometimes I think it’s nearly impossible for me to think three thoughts in a linear function.  I often wonder if my degree of ‘success’ such as it was in the classroom was largely due to the ability of my students to sort out the stuff they needed from the rambling and shambolic sessions.  But I also gave every class a book.  And I re-wrote the book every year, set up to print from a pile of masters through the night before the first class.

Day one: “Here is the target: test samples, glossaries, quirky and whimiscal readings and problems, data sets, cartoons, advice (Like do some study), poetry and philosophy”  If I droned on or died they could still pick up enough to ‘pass’ (and notice I did not say ‘learn’ – this only happened sometime)

Rogers and facilitation

I have been fascinated by Carl Rogers. Facilitator extrordinaire.  Here is a quote from the wonderful infed site: (Probably better than wikipedia and citizendium in it’s field.)

Freedom to Learn brought together a number of existing papers along with new material – including a fascinating account of ‘My way of facilitating a class’. Significantly, this exploration brings out the significant degree of preparation that Rogers involved himself in (including setting out aims, reading, workshop structure etc.) (Barrett-Lennard 1998: 186).
Carl Rogers was a gifted teacher.

His approach grew from his orientation in one-to-one professional encounters. He saw himself as a facilitator – one who created the environment for engagement. This he might do through making a short (often provocative, input). However, what he was also to emphasize was the attitude of the facilitator. There were ‘ways of being’ with others that foster exploration and encounter – and these are more significant than the methods employed. His paper ‘The interpersonal relationship in the facilitation of learning’ is an important statement of this orientation (included in Hirschenbaum and Henderson’s [1990] collection and in Freedom to Learn).

The danger in this is, of course, of underestimating the contribution of ‘teaching’. There is a role for information transmission. Here Carl Rogers could be charged with misrepresenting, or overlooking, his own considerable abilities as a teacher. His apparent emphasis on facilitation and non-directiveness has to put alongside the guru-like status that he was accorded in teaching encounters. What appears on the page as a question or an invitation to explore something can be experienced as the giving of insight by participants in his classes.

Having someone in your class of guru like status changes things.  In light of the teaching/facilitation dialogue, this is important.  Sometimes reputation, your first sentence or your first post establishes something – a place to dialogue or not.  Etienne Wenger is superb at this: creating a space to move into.  But he is not just a facilitator.  More sometime.

I hear Leigh tomorrow. And Etienne in two weeks.  Cool

June 17th, 2008 | Tags: , | Category: Facilitation, Leadership, Learning, Storytelling, Teaching and Learning | 3 comments

Reflections on e-fest

I was inspired to do this post by reading Mark Nicholls’s blog. I was sitting in a relaxed mood during the last speeches at e-fest when in a moment of inspiration I checked my plane departure time to discover it was in 75 minutes, not about three hours as I thought. I left far too quickly, with no sense of closure, good-byes or wind-down.  There was for me no debrief . . .
I am interested in three comments by Mark:

I have been reflecting on my eFest experiences and the discomfort I felt when discussion turned toward our ‘inadequate’ education system (at all levels – this criticism wasn’t confined to tertiary). It is very easy to rubbish things; all you need are perfect expectations, a simplistic perspective of the world, a few examples and a preferred solution that fails to consider all of the world’s complexities.

It is interesting how we can attend the same event, and get totally different things out of it. I didn’t see much of this view. Maybe Mark is referring to the last session where I did leave early: I did catch a very interesting speech by a High School student, referring to the TED podcast Do schools kill creativity by Sir Ken Robinson 2006

Mark also asks:

Should we do away with schools and tertiary institutions because of the potential of Web 2.0, and the rise of the digital native? That is as naked a question as was enthusiastically affirmed at eFest.

I think the theme for me at e-fest was using new tools for improving old (necessary) practices – like creating authenticity, encouraging engagement and reflection . . . I spent some time in some of the sessions where the question was How to cope with the non-digital native? – when they need to become digital. Like Lee said: If I have to teach one more person how to insert a hyperlink . . .
What are the basic competencies I wonder? Nancy White has spoken on this . . hers is quite a clear view.

Mark also commented:

My bone is that Web 2.0 and networked learning are yet to convince me that they could do a better job than the ‘ongoing progress’ being made by the status quo. Communities of Practice are simply not as communally representative as are local schools, so are therefore impoverished as substitutes.

Hmm. I’ve talked with Mark a little about this, but the conversation remains unfinished. I suspect the communities of practice Mark is referring to are either NOT communities of practice (maybe in the sense a school may be a community, but not a CoP) (ref the wikipedia definition) – or else they are communities gone bad. As Etienne Wenger says:

(Community) . . .  can be both a strength and a weakness…the locus of creative achievements and the locus of inbred failures; the locus of resistance to oppression and the locus of the reproduction of its conditions; the cradle of the self but also the potential cage of the soul  Possible reference

[As an aside, Lev Richard didn't like this bit of the book]  Etienne said in his Christchurch workshop that he wanted to title the chapter the Dark Side of Communities – but the publisher went with the Downside of Communities.  At efest I was party to more discussions of the difficulties and the promise of communities rather than a romantic rose coloured view.

This brings me to my reflections. I greatly enjoyed the workshops and sessions I went to, and once again discovered some hidden gems amongst the people who work in this country. I never thought I would ever say this:  I missed the first time practitioners giving presentations.  I enjoyed meeting some old friends, but I regret not making proper connections with others: Stephen, Richard, and Bernie – you know who you are!!

I did NOT like being on deck for a stand to advertise courses.  I found the support for everything great.

I was however a little preoccupied by having to be on deck for facilitation on day 2.
Day Two was supposed to be an interactive day.  Four sessions with a facilitated after session table group.  I’m undecided how to respond to the actuality.  If we were going for real interaction and synergy:

  • My black hat/glass half full view: we wasted some of the day.
  • My glass half full, AI lens: well, it could have been better, we learned a lot about what to do and not to do and how better to structure things.

So the S word.  Structure.  Back to my interest in more open dialogue/conversation based events rather than either the traditional academic paper treadmill, sharing of ignorance or thinking in what occurs first in an unco-ordinated way.

Open space?  For a quick overview, see a YouTube video link courtesy of Stephen Harlow.  I’m not quite yet suggesting a full open space event in a big conference like environment like eFest.  You need a critical mass of people with a mindset – or I am happy to structure it a bit if I am in a leadership role (like last year’s ::FLNW:: open space event in Christchurch) – or (and there is one other alternative)

Open space?   From wikipedia:

Open Space Technology (OST) is a way to convene people for a conference, retreat or meeting. “Technology” in this case means ‘tool’ – a process; a method. Attendees are asked to generate the meeting agenda as well as participate by leading small group break-out sessions during the meeting time. There is usually a facilitator, but no official meeting leader who demands compliance.

It is similar to Future workshops, BarCamps or Unconferences.

“This entry is written more like an advertisement”

I considered editing this entry, but it was just too big a job and I felt ill equipped.  I love the possibilities in the unconference model, especially after my experiences at Setubal and The Prato Dialogue at Florence.  And Cathy’s FLLinNZ roadshow. . . .
Back to day two at e-fest: Superb talks, all of them, but if our goal was more than just listening, I think

  1. we talked too much to the people on day two, and not enough clear time for conversation and dialogue, and . .
    (Maybe it was a question of ratio to talk)
  2. not enough capture of the gems – there was random broadcast of some ideas, but they often reflected a confident personality rather than a considered group process.
    In this I do agree with Mark: an ongoing process is important.
    We had once again a major e-learning conference with no management of the artifacts produced – no conference aggregator – no conference upload. . . .
  3. The structure was not quite enough . . .  or something.

eFest 2007 marks the end of an era, with significant eCDF funding. I wonder what the future will hold?  If there is an opportunity, I think I’ll be back in 2008.

July 5th, 2007 | Category: Events 07, Storytelling | Leave a comment

The power of story

Our principal gave his annual “State of the Nation” address today. Started with a story. From memory . . .

lqI was leaving Christchurch, in a Boeing 737 a year ago – very rough – the aircraft was thrown around by extreme turbulence. I wondered if we would make it. Then there was a voice that said two things: THIS IS YOUR CAPTAIN SPEAKING. and I DON’T THINK ANY OF US ENJOYED THAT.”

He was talking about our year just gone, as we lurch towards merger with the local university. (It’s been a tough year!!) Again, I think about the effectiveness of stories in communication to set the scene, build community and inspire vison.

I must check to see if my section on stories has anything in it.

January 24th, 2006 | Tags: , | Category: Leadership, Storytelling | Leave a comment

Story Telling

Stephen Harlow: Stories

“The key to leadership is effective communication of Stories” (Peter Senge)
“Story telling is probably a brain obsession” (Antonio Demazzio) (We all do it)
“Everything I can remember from school was wrapped around a story” (Stephen H)
Story: “Crisis, climax, relief” ( – the male orgasm curve – Douglas Rushkoff)
Steve Denning: “A story is fact wrapped in emotion” (Don’t give detail, let the hearer fil it in for themselves and they then own the story)

“Reason without emotion is neurologically impossible”

Steve Denning: “A story is fact wrapped in emotion” (Don’t give detail, let the hearer fill it in for themselves and they then own the story)

We tell stories to make meaning from experiences. Like we chat after a conference talk. Stories are the product of reflection.

“Portfolios tell a story. It is the story of knowing. . . . knowing oneself”
Helen Barrett – putting the people into portfolios
“The portfolio is a laboratory where students construct meaning from accmulated experience” – [Paulson, P. & Paulson, F.L. (1991)] ref

A book: Learning through Storytelling in Higher Education – Janice McDrury and Maxine Alterio – Kogan Page 2002 A review

“A good sense of identity enables a person to feel good in their skin” (SH)

June 2nd, 2005 | Tags: | Category: Communities, Storytelling | Leave a comment