OF2010 what did it do?

Learning.

Educators are that fortunate position of experiencing a lot of education, most often we are giving it and hopefully often we are also receiving it. We are critical evaluators benchmarking against our own vast experience and other examples. We are reflective practitioners much like other professionals, and we take this role seriously. We therefore know when we have been served well and when not.

WE HAVE BEEN!

Did I learn new and useful things? truckloads, I am still overwhelmed by those loads and it will take sometime to work through it all, I am figuring by the time the next course starts I will be in a better position and learn again. So you can take it from the earlier sentence that it was challenging enough. There is challenging and there is challenging. I have recently finished a national certificate in Lit and Num; that was challenging. The challenge was the level of patronage, overworked detail, yawning boredom of the work, the challenge was staying with and completing. The value? I will probably never know, time will be the teller, here and now I give it 2 on a 1-10 scale.

The challenges with this course were many. I would have liked to have been able to spend much more time on-line, the family couldn't believe I was always on my lappie. The headspace to go to the sites and learn over the course of the paper, I just haven't been able to do that, but i now know i have youtube and Sarah's site there as well as other kind people. I need to learn how to make a youtube clip, that is on my list.

The course facilitator did do a good job, she did a very good job. My first meeting with her was on the WE page, now I have seen a few of these and expected this course to run true to them, well it didn't and it hasn't in any way, it has started its own paradigm of excellence, I wonder how long it will be solitary. OP also needs a deal of credit here for being, in my opinion, the benchmark provider in NZ of on-line learning and I am happy for that to go to the CE [Auckland Uni, Waikato, Massey and NorthTec can't get near], and therefore for employing such quality people as Sarah and her colleagues, take a bow OP; love to work in such an environment, they obviously do exist.

I have a thought or suggestion. There a number of basic things I have not learnt, and I guess i could have, anyway how about a glossary of things we really are tripping up and on how to do that?

I will put up, embedding links into blogs, organising the upper ribbon of screens open, I know I have been over that with Sarah but it hasn't sunk in. Maybe on the opening WE page there could be a checklist of tools or skills that would be useful to have started before the course, so that practice continues right the way through, they are simple things but so useful.

Applied learning-

This week I am setting up a FB and Wordpress blog for my business as well as linking my twitter account acethat. My domain goes live as well as my email addresses. I will be in set up mode for a month as well as out F2F marketing "tai chi for this time in your life" the first is For Mums and Mums to Be. I will connect all this together and keep this blog going to have grand explosions, when steam needs to blow, no names. I have asked to included in on-line facilitation opportunities as them come along and will be pitching my skills to a range of organisations as an OLF.

I have recommended this course to a vast range of people and will blogging, FB and emailing them well before it is due to start, I have a list of a dozen people so far.

Venn diagrams, social networking and on-line facilitation

As I sat thinking about this blog Venn diagrams came to mind and stayed there, my conclusion is that they concept is to be part of my blog, and why?

I have read Sue Walter's blog and her PLN site, there are some excellent visuals to promote thinking. For me from a personal and professional perspective I see networks such as professional Ning or Facebook site as circles, as well as social circles and learning circles; there are points of sharing common knowledge and skill and points where sharing or commonality takes place in new ways, I visualise these circles as in constant motion connecting at the similarities.

How can social networking and facilitation be used for on-line facilitation?

To answer this I return to how we as humans network and facilitate, it is worth pausing a moment to remember that not all humans value doing this, or have the confidence and skills. Attempting to take this on-line therefore presents a range of challenges if one of the outcomes is to include these groups.

For those who seek to network and facilitate taking the activity to an on-line forum means basic pool rules are known and even part of personal practice. An interest in people and their activities is commonly held. For those with more dominant characteristics I suspect the on-line forum provides clear indicators of people voting with their feet!

Advantages and disadvantages of social networking on-line are oft-documented and debated, as I am personally during planning for my new business; ie which networks do I wish to use and why, who do I want to reach on-line? these need to be clear business objectives as part of the overall plan. I am also clearly aware that my personal and business networks are like the Venn diagram discussed above, there are points of commonality and points of distance where other links occur. Coming to mind pretty immediately are that some of the postings of my young friends 13 to 23 are not appropriate for other generations to be exposed to.

Once I have decided from this candy shop of platforms which ones I am committing to, I will plan the part of my business I will operate on-line and prepare the first few weeks of work, to ensure the viewing networkers wish to return and recommend the site to others. I would use it to post resources and invite participants to discussions, facilitating further networking. I was interested to hear from an ex-business person that this mode of operation was considered foolhardy, as it could only lead to other people in the same business swiping ideas and comments, competitiveness run deep ofcourse, I am interested in hearing how other on-line facilitation business have fared in this regard.

I intend using my on-line site as a continuation of face to face facilitation and skype mentoring/coaching sessions, in much the same way as many people on this course already do. I am sure there is little to invent, there may just be adaptations.

Now I am away to socially network with adult community educators who have jointly won the 2010 Dynamic Community Leadership award, they are Circus Kumarani and Flax Roots Whanau, we are to congregate and celebrate.