“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
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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
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http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Blank_map_world_gmt_%28simplified%29.svg
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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
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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
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Facilitation
• Frequent contact - regular phone calls
• Text reminders for meetings
• Evening meetings
• Flexible
• Summaries of
discussions
in course blog
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Assessment • Three assessments
– Reflective blog
– Plan an online event (synchronous or asynchronous)
– Evaluate an event
• Marking carried out by loose rubric
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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…
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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
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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
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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?
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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?
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