Online facilitation tips

Achieve authentic conversations from the head, heart and gut

Achieve a place where everybody builds social capital individually by improving each others knowledge collaboratively

The host is an authority

Host models the behaviour they want others to emulate

Intervention has to be ground up not top down

establish rules early and keep to as few as possible

Natural hosts emerge and existing hosts should scout and mentor them

Add a time delay to your emotional postings
(Rheingold)


Have clear objectives as participantsmust believe thier online interactions is time well spent

Encourage participation through design 0 single group discussions, debates etc

Be objective - consider tone and content, knowledge and attributges

Weave strands of conversation together to prompt people to pursue topic further

Present conflicting opinions to encourage debate

Use open-ended remarks , examples and weaving to elcit comment

Acknowledge lurkers or latecomers

Praise and model behaviour you seek

Distribute list of participants so private messages can be addressed to individuals#

Instructors should contribute one quarter to one half of online material

Clarify topic and expectations throughout conference proceedings

Develop a study guide addressing content and technical probelms

Provide time to learn new software or become accustomed to learning environment

Buddy experienced peers with novices
(Berge)

Essential ingredients for online community

For me the three essential ingredients for a successful online community would be purpose, motivation and trust.
Taking them in the order statedPurpose behind the existence of the community is essential as it affects so many other elements within the community. It helps determine the tools for use, how they are applied and the time, information and expertise used to support the community (White,N ). Too many times technology is implemented with no purpose and is then labelled as a solution looking for a problem.

Motivation is an absolutely pivotal point as it gets community members through the early stages of use of hardware and software where problems can occur.(Salmon) during the first year of study with the OU online difficulties with the incompatibility of my laptop and their CD Rom I almost drop kicked the laptop out the window through frustration and would cheerfully have given up such were the problems. It was sheer motivation and determination to success with the course that ensured I continued to contribute online. I was forced to look for local resolutions to such issues namely being nice to a techie friend of mine and also to being open to learning about how to solve problems myself. Reynolds et al point out the same indicating that positive motivation can lead to self driven, self directed efforts to solve problems, master new skills and contribute ideas to colleagues.

Trust
Online participation can feel like a solitary experience especially if it involves distance learning. The element that removes that feeling of isolation is the help and support received from others within the online community. To provide comment and to support others online requires trust (Bradshaw et al). The tacit cues we use to determine anothers propensity to be trustworthy such as tone of voice, body language and visual contact are denied (in the most part) online. Commiting your thoughts and learing processes to text where others can view it normally feels uncomfortable unless you trust the community to behave in a professional manner. that is not to say that all must agree with all points raised indeed it is the socratic dialogue entered into between participants that leads to co-construction of knowledge.

2nd October

Logged into the community to see what is happening, print off a few articles and read the comments of others in particular the facilitators. There seem to be a few of us missing from the community still - I would guess that as the facilitator you would be implementing some strategies to find out where they are and encouraging them back in.

I notice there is one comment on the age of one of the articles and I agree it does seem dated. But whose role is it to find another? surely it is part of the role of the community to bring resources for the benefit of all in the community?

I still feel a sense of unease about the course and have been trying to work out why. I think its because there are no rules, behavioural norms or roles identified other than that of the facilitator? Few of us are happy in any environment where we dont know who is responsible for what or how we are expected to behave? Perhaps what as participants are expected to do is to apply the reading within the context of our course and for us to define the parameters and the roles.