Karen Humber

Be the Change

2011-11-10T16:20:00.000-08:00

This an amazing video of about what can happen when you just do it!

2 inspiring minutes

Guidelines for Participation

2011-06-10T08:20:00.000-07:00

When you're just starting to work together in a group, remember to take the time to formulate a set of guidelines for participation. Groups who have guidelines find it can be a great tool for everyone to use to remind each other to get back on track. A great way to start is to ask what has worked for participants in meetings and what hasn't worked.

Here are some examples from a code of conduct for a group of administrators:

We agree that we will work cooperatively to find solutions that meet all of our needs as much as possible rather than compromise where everyone gets less.

We agree to support one another with active listening and emotional support. We agree to listen without interruption, either verbal or physcial.

We will ask for help as needed for ourselves and for the group.

We agree to be honest, open and transparent and to voice issues or disagreements with respect and honour.

We agree to confidentiality regarding personal and professional information shared in the meeting.

We will practise using 'I' statements.

We will do our best to actively own responsibility for these agreements and any others we make.

What's worked for you in groups in meetings? What hasn't worked?

Certifiably Complete!

2010-11-16T16:53:00.000-08:00

The following is the text of an email I sent to Otago Polytechnic:

Dear Dr. Day and Mr. Marler,

My name is Karen Humber and I am a Canadian facilitator and informal graduate of your Facilitating Online 2010 course. My intention in writing this email is to express my gratitude for your role in offering courses like Facilitating Online 2010 to the world. We are definitely in a global transition regarding education and learning and I believe you at Otago Polytechnic are at the forefront leading the way in open learning through courses such as this.

Last summer I stumbled upon the Facilitating Online 2010 course when I was looking for information to start a blog. Knowing the power of external commitment, I signed on not really looking much further into the course content. It was easy – there was no charge and I just had to figure out how to add my name to a wiki. Unwittingly I had stepped into the unknown and now five months later I find I have discovered and experimented with a plethora of online tools and made connections all around the world. And yes, FO2010 did meet my initial objective and has kept me blogging regularly with topics, questions – and most importantly an instant audience.

I also wish to convey a deep appreciation for the course facilitator, Sarah Stewart. At first I was surprised to find a midwife leading the course and was curious about the number of midwives she had attracted to this online environment. Now I have a bit of insight into how natural –and perhaps traditional - it is for this profession to share knowledge and information. In my estimation Sarah has done an outstanding job of meeting the individual needs of over 70 students from all over the world. She has faced participation challenges that are exacerbated in the online environment and has graciously welcomed intermittent participants and late starters time and again. I particularly appreciate her inclusiveness, enthusiasm for online tools and facilitation and ability to ask great questions to push my learning deeper.

It is an amazing opportunity for me to have participated in this course and I want you to know how much I appreciate your role in making this possible.

With gratitude,

Karen Humber

Finishing Up FO2010

2010-11-14T15:01:00.000-08:00

Finish the course with a closing post with feedback about the course. Did you learn new and useful things? Was it challenging enough? What could have been better? What could you have done better. Did the course facilitator do a good job? How will you apply what you have learned? Who would you recommend to do this course next time?

Top of my list of new and useful things are my mini conference co-facilitators: Tracy and Mark. Be sure to check out their blogs - it's a great demonstration of a continuation of our collaboration and builds a full picture of our mini conference. Working with colleagues I've learned, is the ideal back up plan. We were able to complete our agenda with 3 of us when things went sideways in the Skype conferencing. I honestly don't think that would have been possible as a solo facilitator and I know what we created was much richer than I would have done alone.

My intitial impetetus for signing on to this course was to help me develop a blogging habit. I'm pleased to report that I've made 27 posts since July 9 - Hooray! Certainly the course was a huge support in providing topics, questions and material to blog about - and even more important, an audience. I was surprised to discover what a buzz it is to receive comments and my next challenge is to figure out how to move beyond just reflecting to creating a space for conversation. Sarah has very skillfully modeled this throughout the course with her provocative open-ended questions.

I resurrected the graphic I created last July about what I was hoping to get out of this course and am pleased to note that I have achieved most everything - and more - that I set out to. My apples are mostly ripe - although Twitter and Facebook are still a bit green. While I use both, I haven't fully embraced them in that I need to actively build a following to make them relevant. After all - there is not much point in being online if I'm just talking to myself.

The number of tools and the potential combinations that we've covered is pretty amazing. I'm very appreciative of the experience and exposure and have already integrated some of them such as google docs. I notice I need to add igoogle, google reader and Delicious to my harvest above - all very practical organizers that make the difference between staying on top or drowning in information.

The biggest challenge for me after I committed to the course was to keep it going in the midst of all the other things going on in my life. Sarah's willingness and openness to include everyone at their point of participation got me back on track in September when I got snowed under. The pace was relentless, yet doable and always sparking something new for me. I feel a new found sense of adventure towards experimenting online based on my experiences.

I loved the opportunities to actually 'do' online facilitating. Despite the technological challenges with both of my sessions, I believe this is the way of the future and now feel excited rather than intimidated by the possibilities. Much as I love it, I harbour concerns about technology and worry about things like whether social media is creating an empathy deficit. Expanding my understanding of how it works will support me to develop creative online forums that are compassionate, inclusive and respectful. And that is how I plan to use what I have learned - to piggy back this technology onto my existing work and expand out.

Wrapping It Up!

2010-11-11T18:05:00.000-08:00

Today was the big day for our mini conference and a great lesson to me on breathing. For me it started a couple of hours before the event when I discovered that something was awry with my Skype and I wasn't able to add new contacts. Twenty minutes before the start time I finally had to disconnect from Norton remote support to dial in to meet my co-facilitators. Having a remote support scrubbing my computer particularly just prior to an event is totally nerve racking - and that's when Tracy gave me my first reminder to breath.

What didn't work:
The Skype conferencing was chaotic and I think it was exacerbated by a couple of factors. The older version of Skype that was being used by the host caller prompted people to open up a new Instant Messaging group which spawned a whole bunch of groups. Another was the sheer enthusiasm of participants who called back in after they were dropped out of the conference call which generated another whole group of mini conferences. Inconsistent audio for some participants was also a problem. The bottom line seems to be that despite the advertising to the contrary, we were not able to maintain a conference call with 14 participants, let alone 25.

What did work:
iMeet worked great to collect ideas, sort and display them to everyone. I was intriqued to observe that connection can be created and maintained online in silence. Participants concentrated on writing their comments while simultaneously observing what others were writing - maintaining the sense of connection without speaking.

Sharing the design, planning and facilitation with Tracy and Mark is definitely is at the top of my list. I know that what we created was much richer because of our collaboration and it definitely gave us a stable framework that allowed us to essentially accomplish our goals within the time frame. Even with three of us, we still didn't manage to get everyone online - it would have been a nightmare as a solo facilitator.

Our marketing plan was successful in that we had 14 people including ourselves show up. Asking people to pre-register I believe helped both get people to their headsets and supported our planning.

What Now?
We've decided to extend the event asychronously on iMeet for another 48 hours in acknowledgment that the chaos created in the conference call didn't create the kind of reflective forum we wanted and to give everyone the opportunity to add to the feedback.

Physics of Participation

2010-11-03T09:18:00.000-07:00

The end of FO2010 is hurtling towards us and we are now into the two weeks of show and tell with our mini conferences. I'm thrilled to be collaborating with Mark from Australia and Tracy from the United States and recognize that the best times for me in this course have been connecting with others in the course and love how it has expanded my network. The last session I worked with Jane and Willie - both from down under and will continue to stay connected beyond the course through LinkedIn. Some statistics: seventy-one signed onto the Wiki for this course and 12 are at this moment publically committed to the final assignment. I know there was a point when it was all about to let go of me and totally understand the challenges. One thing that has worked for me to keep going is having fellow collaborators.

Earlier on in this course we 'read' an article by Clay Shirky about how he thinks that the function of media is to dispense with our cognitive surpluses. If we accept his premise, what is it going to take to shift us out of passively receiving back into action? A friend teaching a course at the local university just told me that the majority of his students switched to audit status after they heard the course expectations. Have we really just become information receptacles? What are we doing with all that information anyway? How do we integrate and transform it into something of our own to create something new?

As we prepare for our mini conference one of our big questions is the perenniel one of how to fill seats and get people to participate. In our group, we agreed it begins with the invitiation and wanted ours to be inviting yet clear about expectations. And a little edgy. We have an underlying premise of reciprocity - that we want you to come and if you do, this is what you can expect to experience and to receive. We want to deepen our own reflection of our experiences of FO2010 through conversations and story telling with others. And to create a forum where we experience, 'the whole is greater than the sum of its parts' by sharing and stirring our individual experiences and opinions and synthesizing them into .........

I know I'm excited about what might come out it and what it might spark for next steps for me that I may not come up with on my own. Hope you are too and that you will come.

You are warmly invited....

2010-10-30T12:30:00.000-07:00

You are warmly invited to our

Wrapping it Up: Reflecting on FO2010

Pulling it all together

Mini Conference

with Tracy Pemberton, Karen Humber and Mark Spain

November 12 at 11:00am NZ for 90mins

World Clock

Purpose:
To connect with each other one last time before the end of FO2010, share our joys and challenges and plans for the future.

Process:

Provide a safe and trusting online space for small and large group facilitated deep listening and story telling via Skype
Record key insights and emerging priorities from small groups to share with large group using the online collaboration tool iMEET!
To personally and collectively explore the following three themes:

What was exciting for you about participating in FO2010? What got your creative juices flowing?
What intrigued and surprised you? What things were you not prepared for? What unexpected openings emerged for you?

After we have reflected on these two questions we will invite each of us to then listen to what is arising:

What next steps are emerging for you to take next in your journey as an online facilitator?

Debrief the 90min gathering and collect the feedback from all participants on what worked well and specifically identifying good practices for online facilitators
Provide each participant with a rich mutually agreed record of the gathering

How to register and participate:
Go to the FO2010 wiki mini-conference site at Pulling It All Together with Karen, Mark and Tracy
and add your name, email, skype and blog address to the participants list.

Tracy, Karen and Mark will skype your address to start the conference.
You will also receive the logon details to iMEET! once you have registered. You only need a web browser to use iMEET!
Please register at the latest by one day prior to the mini-conference.

How to prepare:
Be ready to listen deeply to others stories and share your own. Be ready to have some fun building community with other new and more experienced online facilitators. Participate in Kim Mc's Voicethread mini conference.

Welcome email:
Once you have registered, Tracy, Karen and Mark will send you an email with instructions on how to logon to iMEET! You are then free to practice on the site and explore each agenda item and the collaboration tools. The agenda is setup in the collaboration space.
You will also be invited to have a personal demonstration of iMEET! with skype support if you would like to prepare more thoroughly for the meeting. There will be a demonstration of iMEET! in the first session of the mini-conference but you do need to have logged on prior to the meeting. The facilitators will be unable to help you once the mini-conference starts.

If you have any questions please contact Tracy, Karen or Mark
We look forward to meeting with you

Warmly
Karen, Tracy and Mark

Culture or Reality?

2010-10-11T08:08:00.000-07:00

I've been following the blog posts about cultural competence amongst my FO2010 colleagues with interest and find I've been tripping over the word culture in this particular phrase. According to Wikipedia:

"Cultural competence refers to an ability to interact effectively with people of different cultures. Cultural competence comprises four components: (a) Awareness of one's own cultural worldview, (b) Attitude towards cultural differences, (c) Knowledge of different cultural practices and worldviews, and (d) cross-cultural skills. Developing cultural competence results in an ability to understand, communicate with, and effectively interact with people across cultures."

In reference to facilitating, either online or face to face, I see competence as broader based and necessitating a sensitivity to worldview, differences, practices and skills inclusive of and beyond culture. Even within our own 'culture' there are differences; for example the word workshop in my house means a mini learning environment to me and a place to build things to my carpenter husband. Does this mean that there are cultural subsets within cultures? What I'm grappling with is this concept of competence in facilitation and the abilitity to interact effectively needs to apply to all of our interactions and not just those with other cultures. If one accepts the premise that we each have our own reality, perspective or orientation, then perhaps there is a more precise description such as Reality Competence or Perspective Competence or Orientataion Competence or........?

Whatever it is named, I imagine it as a call to be conscious of what we are bringing to the interaction out of our own uniqueness and to create space to welcome in other unique realities without evaluation or judgment. It is about acknowledging the humanness in each us, and yes - is extra challenging to do in an environment without direct human contact. How do we create ways of being together that create authenticity and freedom?

Return Trip into Dimdim and Integrating Skype Audio

2010-10-08T08:44:00.000-07:00

Sarah set up an opportunity for us to have a second look at Dimdim, hoping I think, to reassure us the previous turbulent voyage was atypical. I was late arriving because my computer froze (in anticipation?) just as the meeting was starting and it took a bit to get it unthawed. Anyway I entered into a conversation where I could only hear Sarah's voice - took me back to the days when we lived out of town with radio telephone service. We had to leave the radio on to hear incoming calls which meant we also heard one side of everyone else's conversations. I'll leave it to you to imagine the stories that were created. Guess it was the precursor to an online identity and truly amazes me to realize how far technology has advanced in 30 years!

The conclusion of Sarah's one-sided conversation (from my hearing viewpoint) was that the free version of Dimdim only allows for one speaker and dramatically limits its application to presentation style formats. However someone had the brilliant idea to combine Skype conference call audio with the Dimdim whiteboard feature. While we didn't actually try out the combo, I can see some real potential there. Mark Spain highlighted the need to work out a protocol for order of speaking. On Skype the speaker's name is highlighted by the surrounding box vibrating but I think it would help for each speaker to indentify themselves each time when working with the Dimdim whiteboard. Could ask people to state wish to speak in text box, ask people to speak in the order on the participant's list,....... I think it has possibilities particularly with a smaller group who wants to speak, listen and show.

Resurfacing and Getting back Onboard

2010-10-04T15:55:00.000-07:00

September has been a blur and I'm relieved to slide back in during a two-week break in this course after taking my own two week break. Would anyone believe that it is the time difference between NZ and Canada that put me on my break two weeks early?

While this has been a full month of face to face events for me, I have had the opportunity to integrate some online tools. I scheduled a couple of meetings with doodle and am writing a group report with google docs. Or at least I am trying to write a group report - there is a gremlin in my computer creating chaos at the moment. Last week it was igoogle and then google reader and now it is google docs. Something starts running around inside flipping through pages, opening up all the documents, signing me in again, again and again. Technological problems are beginning to be a way too familiar refrain on this blog! Even Blogger is doing funny things and intermittently refuses to save my posts. Anyone else experiencing google backtalk?

Enough venting and back to my course reflections - which is after all the real point for this blog.

Twitter and Dimdim
We had the opportunity to try out two new venues for online meetings. The first in Dimdim did not work in that the sound kept dropping giving everyone my previous experience. What did work was the backup plan and the facilitators successfully guided everyone over to elluminate to finish the meeting. A workable back up plan makes all the difference between total disaster and accomplishing your goal. I recently watched a speaker humourously do her whole talk without her power point slides because she couldn't show them in the brightly lit room. The real learning for me again is that the technology needs to be used to enhance and not relied on to be the meat of the meeting. (no pun intended!)

Our next meeting was in Twitter which I have to confess I am still trying to warm up to. Here are our assigned questions:

What worked well?

The people who were able to get into the #FO2010 appeared to be enjoying the content and speed of the interaction. There is a written record which can be helpful. Maybe it helped to create a richer dialogue with fewer participants enabling people to follow a single thread further.

What did not go so well?

A number of us, including me couldn't get into the #FO2010 stream for some unknown reason. Because the comments were random it took me a bit to figure out the reason that I was not receiving any feedback was that no one was seeing my tweets. It was actually a bit of a relief to realize that because I was starting to feel agitated when I didn't even receive a response to direct questions. Sort of like yelling in a loud room and no one hearing you.

What skills or resources do you need to network and facilitate meetings using Twitter?

I think you need to be quick, flexible, concise and clear in this environment. Being able to hold more than one thread and connect the right ends helps too. It would be easy to take something out of context or misunderstand. I think spending time conversing in noisy bars could be good training for Twitter meetings.

How do you see yourself using Twitter in the future, if at all, for online facilitation?

It strikes me like a tool that was designed for mobile devices originally and now has a computer use. I think it would work best for simple questions/issues and for shorter periods of time.

Elluminate Rules!

2010-09-15T21:23:00.000-07:00

Today I felt like Julia in Julie and Julia when she realized that strangers were reading her blog and were actually interested in what she had to say! At first it was a bit creepy but then I thought hey - this is exactly what I need to be hearing.

What happened to my amazement was that I received a phone call from Dan LeBlanc, Tech Support Manager for Elluminate in Calgary. Calgary, my dear readers - yes I now assume I have one (thanks goddess Beth and google alert), is also in Canada and just one province over the Rocky Mountains from me. It is also the present home of our one and only daughter who is at the tail end of finishing her Masters in Environment Design. Anyway apparently my post popped up in google alerts for Beth who asked Dan to call me and he just wanted to help out if he could. We spent a long time between the phone and his Elluminate voffice and the F02010 Elluminate classroom testing various things. And of course, just like when you go to the doctor, everything worked exactly as it should so I got to finally experience precisely what an incredible interactive forum this can be!

One thing he noticed right away is that the version that he is using is newer than the one that Ortago Polytechnic uses. Apparently there are significant improvements with the audio on version 10. Today however the audio worked great for me in both versions leading me to realize that my vanishing act has only occurred when I have staff privileges or moderator as they are called inV10. Dan said it is likely the distance between BC and NZ that is causing the disruption and suggested I try dropping my connection speed as low as 56K. I do hope that Ortago Polytechnic keeps Elluminate and actually upgrades to the new version as I am growing quite fond of it.

As we were chatting Dan told me about a couple of other features that may be of interest to fellow FO2010 participants. One is particularly for you Claire Thompson in Penticton and all the other FO2010 teachers if you are not already familiar with it: Learn Central is an online forum for teachers and I am told includes lots of resources like free lesson plans. Their Fire and Ice program delivers distance education programs to rural schools in developing nations. Claire - your name came up when I wondered why you didn't seem to be having any problems maintaining a connection from Penticton which is only a 6 hour drive plus a ferry ride from Vancouver Island.

The other resource which I am going to sign for is Three for Free. It is:

1. free
2. can be your private virtual office for up to 3 participants with the Elluminate tools except for recordings

The best part of all this was that Dan said at the end of the conversation, 'I'm really glad that I called you." Now how great is that!?

Thanks Dan - I'm glad you called too!

Troubleshooting Elluminate and dropped connections

2010-09-14T16:04:00.000-07:00

As a solopreneur my IT department is spread out. The new 'head of the department' is my techie nephew who spends at least two hours each day commuting. So twice a day while he is captive, I plumb his knowledge via his thumbs over Blackberry instant messaging. He turned me onto ISPGeeks to check my connection speed and capacity. The bad news was that my connection is not able to produce a constant stream of data making it not ideal for multiple VoIP conversations, streaming video and extensive file sharing.

A call to Telus, the internet server section of my IT support team sent me to another external (to them) free broadband test. I was told that that my speed of 5.26 mb/s was within the range that I need to sustain an Elluminate session but he would would boost my power from standard to maximum, cautioning me that it can be unstable. He wanted to test it on Elluminate but it was late and I couldn't figure easily how to access it.

Elluminate support was my next port of of call and they responded by suggesting that my connection speed could be unstable because of:

brief internet outage
wireless connection
network slowdown
network congestion

They explained that if my connection speed slows for any reason, the server may be sending me more information that my connection can process. The unprocessed information builds up until finally my computer resets its Internet connection disconnecting me from Elluminate! They suggested I try lowering my connection speed by one level.

Well, tried that and it didn't work. Thanks Willie for coming and testing it with me. One day we will have a real conversation I hope. I spent a couple of hours hanging out on the Elluminate live chat which felt awful slow for being live. Anyway a new member for my IT support team arrived at my door - a Yukon friend and former colleague who had a Mac before they were cool and now chooses to build his computers rather than buy off the shelf. He helped trouble shoot my set up including bypassing my router and trading out a spliced cable for a new one. Temporarily it boosted the results of the quality test but alas it was to no avail - the connection is still dropping.

Back to Telus support who gave me a clear plan for how to figure out whether it is a speed problem with the software or the internet connection. Wonderful Willie from down under met me yet again in Elluminate and we laughed our way through several incidents of me vanishing. According to what I was told by my Telus support, this trial determined it is not my internet connection but rather a speed problem with the software.

Very conscious that that I am now spending way more time troubleshooting this tool than doing what it is I want to do with it, ie facilitating, this is me signing off this search for a constant connection in Elluminate!

Is my online facilitation career doomed before it has even started?

2010-09-02T11:09:00.000-07:00

Preparation

Three of us in two different time zones 19 hours apart put our hands up to facilitate the September 2 session in Elluminate and scheduled our one and only practice in Elluminate just two days prior to the session. Jane was at the end of a major life transition so Willie and I continued pre-planning on google docs. In my experience this sort of thing commonly happens in groups and is readily accommodated with open communication and forward motion.

I highly recommend Google docs for joint creation. It is vastly superior to emailing attachments back and forth and trying to keep track of all the different versions. One tweak that would it work better is to be able to easily identify who has made specific edits - like track changes in Word. We also took a try at Doodle to schedule a meeting and found it has a nice feature to quickly convert time zones.

Invitation
In keeping with the topic for the week of bringing a team, community, network or group together we crafted an invitation intended to be compelling and hopefully provocative or interesting enough to draw people in and clearly state the expectations.After we all had a couple of bats at it on google docs, the freshly edited version was sent to the group via google groups. This was it:

We are hosting a gathering to converse about our thoughts and experiences using social media for online facilitation and to discuss issues or learning that have cropped up over FO2010.

As fellow learners on the FO2010 path we - Jane Scripps, Karen Humber and Willie Campbell, are committed to pushing the boundaries on our learning so that we all take away as much as can out of this course. We believe that by stepping out of our comfort zones and experimenting with new tools we can create a forum where we will hear new thinking that will expand the potential in online facilitation for all of us.

We are inviting all FO2010 participants and facilitators to participate in a conversation. We’re not coming together to problem solve or even to decide anything. We are coming to hear from each other and to play with some new tools which will hopefully enhance our learning as we move forward together.

In preparation we ask you to do the activities and readings listed on the course wiki for the week and to come with open minds and kind hearts.

Please click here and respond to poll telling us if you plan to come so that we know how many sandboxes to plan for.

Thursday 2nd September at 16.00 hours New Zealand

Elluminate Meeting Room

Bring your Curiosity and Yourselves!

I enjoyed the feedback and support from class colleagues. Claire Thompson took the initiative to alert me to the fact that the World Clock link was wonky and that I could fix it with a tinyurl. Also I very much appreciated the openness to trying new things and initiative of my co-facilitators, for example Willie went into Elluminate in advance and figured out how to use best the break out rooms. Better together is my motto!

I set up a poll on my blog for everyone to weigh in and let us know if they planned to attend or not. By the time I figured out that it would be even better to have names of respondents, it was too late to edit the poll because someone had already voted. Yes that someone was me! Next time I will find a different way to do this. Any ideas out there? One thing it did do was inspire me to set up google analytics for my blog to see what I can find out about who is reading it.

Was there life before google? If so, it must have been very superficial.

Process and Practice
After a bit of back and forth we had a design that seemed workable. We created three questions and practiced how we could get people in and out of break rooms and have meaningful conversations that could be brought back to a plenary for sharing.

The writing was on the wall during the practice session - and I should have seen it coming! I kept losing my connection but put it down to the new bluetooth headset. In the end I cloned myself and logged into the Elluminate classroom on two computers which made it possible to track the session because at least one connection stayed up for the most part. Telus assures me I can easily run several computers on my ADSL connection - so why it is not working in Elluminate?

The Real Time Session
When it came time for the online session my sound kept breaking up and my connection kept dropping - despite having changed out my bluetooth headset for a hardwired one. It was nearly impossible to participate, let alone facilitate. I was so upset and felt totally hamstrung.

The real tragedy was that I was supposed to do the welcome, set the context and explain the process. So when my mic crashed, I let down my team and the whole group. All that prep and not able to use it. Willie and Jane were great and stepped right up to the plate. I was stuck in the background passing notes and trying to contribute. Thank you both for the zillion times you reinstated me to staff status after I lost my connection yet again. That must have been so annoying on top of everything else you were doing! Next time I will be sure to digitize all my thoughts and notes and distribute them widely. We had talked about a back up plan but for the most part had still divided up the tasks rather than replicating them.

Even in the break out room, no one could hear me and at one point I vanished when my connection dropped yet again. By the time I came back into the room, I discovered the participants busy looking for the door because they didn't know what they were supposed to be doing in there. Now there is a question : How do you break out of a break out room? I probably would have cried if I hadn't been screaming so loud! It is very dis-empowering to be able to see and hear, but not speak. And I have to admit, pushed me to quickly figure out other ways to communicate. I tried posting the slide on the whiteboard but for some unknown reason they couldn't see it - have to figure out why that didn't work. Anyway in the end I typed the question into the chat line and they immediately picked up the thread from there. Thank you, thank you to such gracious, flexible and tolerant participants. I can empathize with how unnerving it was to be in the midst of such confusion.

Breakout rooms in Elluminate are totally removed from the main room just as they are in the real world. It helped ease the transition immensely the second time around to set the timer and let everyone know what to expect. People in my room were anticipating the end of the conversation and change of space when they could see the timer counting down. In the virtual world there is no transition, no gradual re-entry walking down the hall from one room to the next and it felt quite jolting. Sort of how I feel about air travel versus traveling overland.

Interesting to me was to observe a very rich discussion at the end when we were all back in the main room. I actually feel that it was the most engaged of all of the Elluminate discussions I have participated in to date. Maybe because no one could fall asleep while being catapulted in and out of rooms!Quite a number of people stayed after to debrief and there was a lot of very helpful feedback in that conversation and on the whiteboard.

This was definitely the most challenging situation in my facilitation memory. Perhaps even worse than the failed technology was that I felt I lost my 'holding' of the group; for example when Kim was talking to her baby, I found myself hysterically laughing at the surreality. In retrospect a more helpful contribution would have been to turn off her mic. Definitely an outward manifestation of my feelings of helplessness. Thank you to the staff member who had the presence of mind to do that.

My question remains - is my online facilitation career over before it has even started? I know that I have to figure what is wrong my connection if I am going to continue with this project of learning how to facilitate online. Is it my internet connection, is it Elluminate, is it my computer/s or is it hurricanes as my nephew suggests?

If there is anyone out there who has any ideas about why I can't maintain a connection, I'd love to hear from you.

Skyping with Strangers

2010-08-27T13:08:00.000-07:00

You know after talking directly to them they no longer feel like strangers. Curious eh! Although I already knew a teensy bit about both Jean and Katherine from reading their blogs, it was remarkable how much more connected I felt when I was able to hear their voices and converse.

It was another serendipitous happening (or was it really synchronous this time?) the other night when I was doing my homework adding FO2010 participant contact info to my Skype list at the end of a long day. Serendipitous particularly considering that New Zealand is 19 hours ahead of me but Jean and Katherine happened to be online and within 5 minutes we had exchanged contact info, had an instant message conversation, an audio conference conversation ending with a text conference huddle or debriefing. Maybe more like a gloating! By the end of it I know I was a bit giddy and woke up my husband to tell him that I talked to Jean and Katherine in New Zealand! "What did you talk about?" he wanted to know. Well maybe that bit wasn't so profound, but I told him that one of them said she enjoyed hearing my accent. Do I have an accent? ":No", he said, "only on Skype!"

One thing I did notice is that I wasn't always sure who was speaking. In Elluminate the speaker's name shows up by the mic - unless more than one person is talking. But here I struggled to be sure whether it was Jean or Katherine who had spoken. To my untrained ear, their accents sounded the same! Is there a place on Skype to see who is speaking? If I would have thought of it I could have asked them to identify themselves each time they spoke - but that can get tedious.

We used Skype and the web camera the year our daughter got snowed in in Calgary and didn't make it home for Christmas. A couple weeks later, we connected online and watched each other open our gifts. Another time I walked around the yard with my laptop to show my parents our latest construction projects.

Anyway since that serendipitous night, I now have a whole community of new contacts who let me know each time they come online. While it is interesting, my sanguine side is constantly distracted by those little pop ups. Does anyone know how to turn off the Skype pop ups?

Nothing is the same as it was.

2010-08-25T20:47:00.000-07:00

I just read this timely blog post on Skype etiquette. Timely since the topic for FO2010 this week is skypping - if I can be forgiven for turning a proper noun into into a verb! I totally agree - to maintain any sort of balance or concentration I find I really have to monitor my link to technology whether it is instant messaging, my Blackberry or Skype. Somehow it feels even harder to ignore that bing or buzz than it is to ignore a ringing telephone. I am striving to unplug my internet connection and turn off my Blackberry when I need to focus. And yes - striving is the operative word here! I no longer describe myself as a multi-tasker and am a bit resentful of the way technology tempts us to flit from one thing to the next. How can that be either healthy or productive? Or is it just me getting older and slower?

David Hopkins,the author of the above mentioned blog also posted this great infographic of Maslow's needs and the social media that fulfil 'em. What it does for me is link two seemingly diametrically opposed aspects of my current reality - needs based Nonviolent Communication with the exploration of social media in Facilitating Online.

Before I got around to publishing this post - lo and behold - I discover that fellow student Jean Jacoby from way down under has been reading and writing about exactly the same blog! Now that is synchronous!

Case Studies

2010-08-23T22:02:00.000-07:00

Fascinating read about the Virtual International Day of the Midwife conference. Having organized a couple of conferences/year for the past 3 years I am excited about the possibilities - and am really curious how this is different from a face 2 face conference from all angles - design, organization, participants, presenters.....

I became amazed at what is happening in the world with virtual conferencing when I started looking around. Check out this description of large scale conference design using FacilitatePro with the mission to build community and engage participants at a large conference. In many ways it seems more efficient and effective when in a large group to be able to see who else is there, connect and distribute information. Love the idea of participants posting photos and bios. Although it does seem to fly in direct contrast to worrying about violating the plethora of Privacy legislation! This particular conference used several of the types of questions that Greg Walker talked about in his Elluminate session on how to promote critical thinking in online discussions, ie. convergent, divergent, evaluative. The other two - grounded and Socratic questions were not so easy to identify in the outline.

Here is an incredible resource from our one and only Sarah Stewart on how to organize and facilitate an online event using social media.

I am seriously considering attending the Innovating e-Learning 2010 Online conference just to experience this phenomenon first hand. Somehow it feels to me that this is a whole new hybrid and not necessarily a substitute for traditional conferences. Time will tell....

Summary of my learning from the last three weeks

2010-08-18T22:03:00.000-07:00

These are our instructions and suggestions for this week's activity:

Activity
Summarise your learning from the last three weeks in your blog. You may wish to consider some or all of these questions.

What is online facilitation? Well - online is just that - online. What I have learned is that there are many ways to be online. There are the virtual classrooms like Elluminate, blogging including interacting on blogs, Twitter can be used to facilitate a discussion or disseminate info, google email groups, we have a skype conference call coming up,.... For more check out Jane Hart's directory of collaborative work/learning/social media tools and Robin Good has a site called Kolabora that explores virtual work/collaboration issues.Nancy White's commented that facilitation is a team sport and that we should move out of a centralized place - this really resonated with me. While it is already in tune with my face 2 face philosophy, it feels even more relevant in the virtual environment to give over that control. She talked about how asking good questions is at the core but giving over control is good moderation. At least I thought that is what she said and it seemed to be how she worked. Regrettably I missed her live session but did review the recording. I noticed how participants seemed more engaged than the other sessions after she gave everyone control. I was so disappointed to miss that opportunity!! Sure there is a risk that someone will hijack it but there is an even greater chance that something totally unexpected and wonderful will surface.
What skills do you need as an online facilitator? Following on my comments above, I'd say flexibility, courage, trust, open heart, curious, authentic...... Do you need to be charismatic? Guess I am revealing myself with that question. It does help I think as long as you don't demand to always be the center of attention. Sigh. Oh my gosh - those are capacities. Back to the questions of skills: problem-solving skills, technology know how, clear concise use of language, legible speech, ability to summarize, inclusiveness, bridging, integrating, weaving..... We were introduced to the potential for break out groups which is exciting. I read somewhere the other day about a tool that can be used like a sticky wall. And of course some people have ipads for visual work! You can't be intimidated by all that stuff!
How does a facilitator build an online community or network? I appreciated the comment by one of the participants that communities can find themselves in a network. A facilitator can build that community within the network by supporting, highlighting, encouraging those connections. We were directed to June Holly, who calls herself a network weaver - 'A Network Weaver is someone who is aware of the networks around them and explicitly works to make them healthier (more inclusive, bridging divides). Network Weavers do this by connecting people strategically where there's potential for mutual benefit, helping people identify their passions, and serving as a catalyst for self-organizing groups.'
What are the key things to remember when facilitating an event, meeting or education course, especially when working with people who are new to online technology? First - keep breathing. Don't just keep repeating it - describe things in more than one way. Have a backup plan.Go slow.
What is the difference between teaching and facilitation? My pet peeve is that those words are used interchangeably so often! For me, teaching is presenting content and facilitating is creating the vessel for others to put their content.
What is netiquette? This is good sense, good manners, good will. Be conscious of how we are and how we show up.

I do notice the number of comments on my blog decreasing and conversely the number of comments that I am making on blogs. I am still reading all the blogs but rather zipping through and not taking the time to comment. It is even harder than in real life to get to know your classmates when they can't see you unless you speak directly to them. Sarah is modeling exactly what a facilitator needs to do to create a community by asking questions on each new blog post and by linking us to others in her summaries. Tomorrow I promise I will mend my stealthy ways and comment on every blog I read!

Should email servers be allowed to take a vacation?

2010-08-11T08:43:00.000-07:00

It wasn't until late Monday night that I realized there was a problem with my Telus email server. I had spent the day in Vancouver searching for a room with my son for his upcoming year at SFU and was scanning the emails on my Blackberry as they came in throughout the day. Thankfully I was also able to still use my mobile to respond to the more urgent ones throughout the day too. However at 10:30 pm after a very long day when I sat down at my computer to respond, those same emails were nowhere to be seen - on either computer. Frustrated because I couldn't get into Webmail and thinking I had once again forgotten my password (who dreamed up this password system anyway!!), I gave in and went to bed. In the morning, still nothing. So I picked up the phone to the tech services and could only access a most unhelpful message saying that they were experiencing problems with their webmail and there was no estimated time of repair. For the first time ever, no one answered the phone lines. I realized that all I really wanted was human acknowledgment of how inconvenient this whole situation was for me. I get that things don't always work but that didn't eliminate my feelings of frustration.A message saying it is broken and they don't when it will be fixed only aggravated my frustration.

So what did I do - I picked up the path I had started down a year or so earlier to convert my whole email system to a web based server. It is always frustrating when I am out of office because half the time I can't send emails because of some incompatibility between Shaw and Telus or perhaps it is more between cable and ADSL. Who knows and really who cares? I just want it to work.

Anyway I have several gmail accounts that I have been slowly separating my email activity into. However my main business account through roundtablesolutions.ca and my personal emails are still all forwarded through my Telus account. Changing my forwarding on my business account to one of the gmail accounts was easy enough and I was relieved to be able to get back to work by having clients resend documents to this address. However it has mucked up my Outlook and emails that were there previously have disappeared, ones that showed up on my Blackberry never seemed to make it my computer and now on Wednesday Telus has resent some of the Monday emails for the second time! Arg!

It is a bit of a mess though and one I need to sort out. The real road block for me to switch everything to gmail has been figuring out how to still use Outlook - which I love. I think I figured it out part way yesterday. Rather than trying to do everything in gmail which I find very cumbersome, I added a gmail address to my accounts in Outlook. The real test will be if I can still send/receive from Outlook when I take my laptop on the road. What do others do for a web based mail server?

Learning what online facilitation is... Week4

2010-08-09T06:41:00.000-07:00

Enjoying the way that the assignments are 'chunked' - it feels manageable to read, watch or listen to 4-5 links each week, As well I can see the topic is building which reassures me that I don't have to learn everything at once!.

So what is online facilitation?

Fascinating description by Ed Hootstein of the 'four pairs of shoes' that an e-learning facilitator needs to wear - instructor, social director, program manager, and technical assistant. Found the (or is it an?) answer to Sarah's question about the key task for facilitating virtual teams - 'Encouraging and ensuring a high degree of interactivity and participation is one of the most important facilitation skills according to e-learning experts'.

Gilly Salmon caters to all learning styles with a choice of presentations of her five steps to moderation model for online engagement: Stage 1 - Access & Motivation | Stage 2 - Socialisation | Stage 3 - Information Exchange Stage 4 - Knowledge Construction | Stage 5 - Development.

Interesting to note her comment that online discourse is more explicit and some say fairer. Perhaps a combination of the clarity demanded in writing which also slows the whole process? Making it more thoughtful and precise? Enjoyed the ending - No budgets or humans were harmed by this presentation. ROTFL or Rolling on the Floor Laughing! The Netiquette article gave me the final push to use emoticons to add inflection into my writing :-) to express feelings. Now to learn a few! Relieved to score 100% on the quiz - after all it is common sense. Isn't it?.

Came into the Elluminate class 10 minutes early as per my real time habit and note that arriving early to be ready to start may or may not be necessary in this virtual world. There was some conversation going on about it amongst the facilitators and I spent a few minutes wondering if I was to be the only participant. Was pleased to see a few more came in as the session started. The scheduled presenter had a last minute emergency so Sarah stepped in with a brief presentation on Creating an Online Identity. She used David Hood as an example of what can be done with an online identity. The main point I heard was that if you do anything online you will develop an online identity so why not control it and design it to be what you want.

The audio was really dodgy throughout the session and I found it challenging to contribute in a way that connected to previous comments because I missed most of them. This is something that I imagine is common to this environment and I wonder if a good strategy would be to switch to a text only mode to finish the session.

Working Effectively in Virtual Teams

2010-08-05T18:08:00.000-07:00

Just got off the latest session in elluminate and definitely feel like I traveled to a new world. Not only were there still lots of new things to watch, it had the feel of different norms. It was a bit of a strain both to hear and to understand the language with the accents and the words. Have to get a headset! The audio kept clicking in and out on me chomping away bites of phrases and leaving me to guess at the meaning of the remaining pieces. At one point the whole thing started screaming until Sarah calmly and effectively stepped in with a sweet teaching moment: If the audio screams, take the mic away from the second person and remember to give it back when it is settles down.

Here are some new words I learned today:

Second Life - virtual online world
Builds - structures created in a virtual world
In world - reference to the virtual world. Guess it could refer to this world too. Couldn't it?
Avatars - representation of computer user

Chris and Jillian did a magnificent job of facilitating the session - it was obvious that both are already skilled facilitators. Terry Neal presented about 'Working Effectively in a Virtual Team' citing her experience on the Second Life Education New Zealand (SLENZ) research project. Listening to Terry speak and reading her paper, several things jumped out for me:

'Kimball also notes that 'Working with virtual teams requires thinking about the same key things you think about when facilitating any team process but you need to extend your thinking about them to accommodate to the new environment. Examples of things to consider are purpose, roles, culture, conversation, feedback, pace, entry and re-entry, weaving, participation and flow.' The skills are the same, just amplified. It certainly looks hard to keep track of so many things at once in a virtual setting without the visual cues. Chris gave a great analogy about the benefits of visuals describing how the European signs are mostly graphics while there is more text on American signs.

'16 skills that they believe are necessary to effectively lead virtual teams. These include being able to work in various modes, i.e. face-to-face, online, video and audio, to carry out the usual leadership roles, such as, facilitation, coaching, managing, giving specific feedback and aligning team activities to the team's purpose. At a personal level, the virtual team leader needs to model behaviours such as working across boundaries and cultures, 'ooze integrity, competence, and benevolence', be a good networker, be willing to spend most of their time with team members who are not in the same physical space, focus on results, and aim for continuous improvement of their own leadership skills. The most important skill, however, is the ability to identify team dysfunction in its early stages and be able to take corrective action virtually.' The ultimate multi-tasker - makes it even trickier to pay attention to content. Leave the WHAT to the group and pay attention to the HOW.

'For leading virtual teams, the toolset must include tools that are not text based. It is easier to misinterpret text-based communication and voice adds tone, clarity and stronger connection.' Great point made in the session about the importance of paying attention to tone.

Getting clearer about ellumination

2010-07-28T22:01:00.000-07:00

We had the opportunity to try out the whiteboard on Elluminate yesterday which gave me a clearer idea of the possibilities and what might not work.Now I am getting anxious to get behind the console to see what that looks like. It looks as if the brainstorming elements can be reordered to enable clustering like ideas and I bet templates can be prepared in advance to add to online.

There is a lot to watch for and I felt that the chat section was a bit chaotic - it was not always obvious what was being responded to, not all of the written questions weren't answered - or maybe it was just mine about any activity in the creative group, and I wondered if some of the references were to conversations that were partially happening privately. I can imagine that the distinctions between a face 2 face meeting and this platform will diminish once everyone is more fluent with the technology. It sounds like the cost of Elluminate may be a deterrent for me in my application so am keen to quantify that and expore other choices. Need to check out WizIQ.

Visualizing the Harvest

2010-07-25T13:44:00.000-07:00

Week 2 already!

This week we are asked to make a plan of what we want to get out of the course and are given a gentle prod to present it in another way, eg. mind map, video recording......

Here are the framework questions:

What do you want to learn to facilitate?
What are you doing now in terms of online facilitation?
What would you like to achieve, change or do more of?
What do you need to do or make happen to achieve your goal?

Great questions to focus why I have committed the next few months to hours online.

Integrating one of my other ongoing goals which to get more visuals into my work, I designed a template on a flipchart to record my plan.

Learning requires nurturing and time much like the apples growing in my backyard. The particular image that I chose already gave me a new perspective - and order to the questions. I can imagine facilitating an action planning session with this template. Lots of fun metaphors to spark new thinking - bees to pollinate the blossoms at just the right time, cyclical growth cycle.... however I digress. Back to my F0 plan!

What are you doing now in terms of online facilitation? What are the roots that will keep me upright in stormy weather? What are the resources I already have that I can transform for this particular purpose? I do:email campaigns, use file sharing - google docs, MS sharepoint, online registration, Face 2 Face workshops and meetings, phone conferencing with skype, FreeConferenceCall.com, take teleseminars and online seminars.
What do you want to learn to facilitate? What am I nurturing? What are my hopes & dreams here? I want to learn how to transform my face to face workshops into a virtual platform; also want to integrate these tools into my facilitation offerings. Build online community - who would have guessed I would find some of them amongst the midwives! How to use tools with demonstrations such as role playing.
What do you need to do or make happen to achieve your goal? This is my To Do list - what steps do I have to take, what about my attitude, what resources do I need? Commitment, consistency and practice! Follow the plan and do the homework. Learn the tools - both how to use them and how to teach others to use them. Engage with other participants. Survey the technology, try it out and hear others experiences.
What would you like to achieve, change or do more of? In the end, what do I want to harvest? What kind of fruit do I want - as specific as possible. What will make it all worth the effort? Already I have a blog set up which is what got me here in the first place. This will build the habit of blogging plus lots of good ideas from the blogs of all the other participants. I will expand my offerings and clientele with new product, ie online workshops/facilitation projects asynchronously and synchronously over time.. Potential for new partnerships.

Here's the status of my plan at this moment. I have it set up in the corner of my office and am adding to it as new ideas come.

Everything is eLLUMINATED!

2010-07-22T16:48:00.000-07:00

Debriefing two sessions on elluminate - one recorded and one live:

I now feel like I could at least participate in a real meeting on elluminate. Facilitating a session is definitely further off until I get more at ease with the platform. There are so many things going on at once that I feel a bit ADD.

Listening to the recording of the first meeting was totally passive - yes it was a recording and none of the buttons worked! So while listening I was able to continue my routine - make and eat breakfast, editing, receive and respond to emails, attach participant names to their blogs - that sort of thing. The second meeting I was more actively engaged as I poised for opportunities to contribute. So I restrained my external activities to doodling with my markers and crayons:

What are my takeaways?

It is even trickier than in a face to face meeting to keep everyone engaged. After all what was I doing when nobody could see me? Need to research tools and techniques for doing this virtually. Or does it really matter?
To start an event on time, announce and open the room in advance for people to check their equipment and software.
I appreciated being able to scroll back and re-read comments when I didn't understand a subsequent one. I totally got the comment that Derek made twice about the chat room usually being closed off. There is a lot going on for a facilitator to keep track of and it calls on one to develop new senses and techniques when you don't have visuals to fall back on.
Love the emoticons, hands and voting buttons to get an instant poll of the mood. I can imagine that the quiet folk particularly like this as it gives them a voice that may not be so readily available in face to face meetings. Very democratic way to balance participation!
I thought that Sarah and Chris did a stellar job of co-facilitation. One or the other always picked up on the hands, questions, slamming doors... did she really leave? Consider co-facilitating.

Hash Tag #FO2010

2010-07-21T07:34:00.000-07:00

Curious about the phrase hash tag that Sarah used when she asked us to use # FO2010 to identify this course on Twitter, I logged onto Wikepedia and here is the short version:

Hash tags
Short messages on services such as Twitter or identi.ca may be tagged by including one or more hash tags: words or phrases prefixed with a hash symbol (#),^[9]^[10] with multiple words concatenated, such as those in:
#realale is my favorite kind of #beer
Then, a person can search for the term #realale and this tagged word will appear in the search engine results. These hash tags also show up in a number of trending topics websites, including Twitter's own front page.

Note to self: Just because I know the word does not mean I understand the meaning or the context! That little symbol that I know of as the pound or number sign apparently is called the hash key in most English-speaking countries outside of North America. Go figure!

The Course Begins...

2010-07-20T08:13:00.000-07:00

The first difference I noticed about a virtual versus classroom course is that the beginning was rather anti-climatic as far as beginnings go. The only indication that it was starting was a welcome RSS feed from course facilitator Sarah Stewart waiting patiently in my inbox for viewing at my convenience. Ok - I admit that already I am enjoying that I can fit this learning around my schedule which is a huge benefit - and realistically is what makes it possible for me to participate.

With participants scattered around the globe, it is a bit trickier to get us all in our seats at the same time and requires different kinds of meeting 'bookends' or openings and closings. No warmup/get acquainted games here on the first day! Our first real meeting as a group in the online classroom is scheduled for Thursday - maybe there will be something then.

I wonder how many of the course registrants will be online at the same time on Thursday. Finding a good meeting time for a group is challenging at the best of times; however it is outright daunting with participants in so many different time zones. Thankfully World Clock has eliminated the arithmetic with a very cool meeting time planner where it is possible to align meeting times for up to 4 locations at a time. Times of the day are colour coded into three broad categories - awake, at work or sleeping - dramatically simplifying good meeting time choices. Regrettably the first virtual meeting for this course falls smack in the red sleeping zone for me. No worries - I will be able to catch up a few hours later over my morning coffee. Again - at my convenience.

Much of this is about two words that have not been in my daily vocabulary - synchronous and asynchronous learning. Studies are starting to quantify the advantages of asynchronous learning to process more content due to the longer time it allows for processing generally. Certainly suits my learning style. Wonder how many asynchronous learners we have in this group of 48?

Pre-Course Prep

2010-07-10T14:54:00.000-07:00

The top is the outside temperature and the bottom shows us still pretty warm inside today.
♠

Trying to keep cool and a tad unnerved by Sarah's comment that the course may be full on, I spent the better part of the day shifting through the content and schedule. I love all the detail in the course schedule and knowing what's ahead puts me at ease! Really appreciate the structure and the thoroughness.

So what did I do with best part of a very hot day?

Well, I:

downloaded the Elluminate virtual classroom and
the free online versions of Dimdim and WiziQ on both my computers,
signed up for google email group.,
converted all the times for the virtual meetings to Pacific Standard Time - the first one is at 1:00 am. Yikes!,
posted them on my calendar,
nosed around the blogs of the other participants.
answered two comments to my brand new blog. Thank you, Thank you! Love that you both noticed me!

I'm already set up for Skype, Twitter and Survey Monkey so I'm okay there. Yet to check out the translator instructions for the non-English blogs.

Whew!! Definitely ready for a swim in the river!

Still deciding some things for my blog and how to set them up. I want to group all the course participants blogs as they automatically show up on my site under Blogs I follow when I sign up to follow their blog. Trying to figure out to do that? How can I create a grouping similar to what Sarah has so neatly done with team members. Any ideas?

Facilitating Online

2010-07-09T13:02:00.000-07:00

I stumbled across this Facilitating Online 2010 course while I was cruising the internet looking for ideas about how to start a blog - and have just now registered! The first assignment is to create and maintain a reflective blog over the duration of the course which is exactly what I need to both get and keep me on track. I'm excited because I know it will give me a focus and a topic as I fumble around trying to figure it all out.

The facilitating online part is really a bonus. While I have been following the online conversations about facilitating virtual meetings, I have not done anything about incorporating these tools into my repertoire. However at one of my recent negotiating workshops, a participant got all excited about the possibilities for me to do my workshops online. I told myself that she was excited just because that's her line of work, but the reality is that I didn't really get what she was talking about. And now here I am - not only has the opportunity presented itself to learn about facilitating online, I am also going to learn what it will take to present my workshops online.