“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

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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?

http://www.flickr.com/photos/61779926@N00/169747741

Sarah Stewart

sarahstewart07@gmail.comhttp://sarah-stewart.blogspot.com

Skype: sarah.m.stewart