Facilitating Online Communities (FOC08)

Finally, my introductory post for the "Facilitating Online Communities" Course from MIT - NZ.

The forum (google group) has been abuzz with lots of postings. I set up a rule in outlook and my folder constantly has new information in it. There is a flurry of activity and discussion reminds me very much of Dr Seuss's Sneetches, with the Star Bellied Sneetches and Sneetches without stars. Each group feeling different and wanting to be the same. There are posts from the techos, with recommendations of tools and toys to be used and the newbies who are simply saying "What....???"

Who Am I?

My name is Robyn Honeman, I am an Education Officer (official title Teaching and Learning Support Officer (Online Applications)), member of the Learning Technology Team at TAFE NSW Riverina Institute. I have been in this role for 3 years now. I do a wide range of things from research and evaluating new technologies, facilitating and piloting projects, administer LMS (including creating courses, training teachers etc), and get to play with a whole lot of cool technology. I also provide On Desk Tutorials and run workshops for staff on all technologies including email, powerpoint, word, interactive whiteboards, video conferencing, web conferencing and whatever else there is a need for at the moment.

I feel I sit most days between a have and a have not, and I am constantly learning!!!

Why FOC08?

What an amazing opportunity to connect worldwide with a whole range of educators, all who I can learn from. While I have been in this field for quite sometime there are SOOOO many tools to use, and ways to facilitate I think you can always learn something new. Something that was mentioned in a post was how good it is to sit back and be a student sometimes. We can become very blasse about what we do and take for granted it will all come as easy to everyone else. Great experience being at the other end of the stick. The other thing that I have to admit peaked my interest is that it hails from the Land of the Long White Cloud with which I have a lifetime connection as it was my place of birth, I have also heard some amazing things about what Kiwi Educators are doing.

What do I want to ask?
At this stage there are no outstanding questions for me. I am inclined to be one of the quiet ones in a course so I am challenging myself to become more of a louder voice in this platform. For the have nots it can all seem so overwhelming and intimidating but believe me we can all learn from each other about something, and there is always something you will know more about than someone else. Back to Seuss this reminds me of "What Was I Scared Of?" I have been interested to see this week how the technology has overtaken the discussion and that some people are not so comfortable with that.

For those of you not so familiar or a bit sketchy on the memory of the Seuss Stories here is a link to read about them.

The Sneetches and Other Stories

I am already enjoying reading the conversations that have arisen from the online discussion and look forward to being online with everyone next week.

Facilitating Online Communities

Put my name on the list for the Online Community course facilitated by Leigh and Otago. 28th snuck up on me and I missed the first session but will spend some time this week getting familiar with the turf. I hope I am able to contribute as much as the rest of the people in the course.

There is an amazing wealth of knowledge in the participants from such a range of backgrounds it is pretty exciting.

Learnscope 2007

Elearning 07 is creeping up fast ---- next week already. My teachers have learnt a lot of new tools and I have learnt alongside them. The Slidecast competition was a learning curve and challenge all of its own. I've been very remiss in blogging but the time has just flown. Most of us will be attending ELearning 07 to finish of the project and it is a wonderful opportunity for us all to go and create/embed networks with other people from across the state.

Del.icio.us

Another session online with the Learnscope Group. Worked on a powerpoint on bits and pieces for Del.icio.us which is what the session was about which has made me realise I need to set aside some time to get my own delicious account up to date and useable. Much more effective than the favourites at home and at work that are never on the right machine.

Team members all seem to be surging ahead with their projects and learning, doing and planning lots with their students. Everyone seems to have their niche for what they want to use the tools for which is wonderful. Projects are evolving from one thing to the next. It will be great to have the opportunity to showcase some of what has been learnt at the Gen Ed Faculty meeting at the end of the month.

Success with Connect

I am in the process of using bloglines to subscribe to the teams blogs. I have created a new slideshow of our images and hope for them to be able to look at them during the session next week - now I'll try to post to the project wiki !!

We had our trial sessions with Connect yesterday and everyone's audio is now working to participate in the online sessions. I will need to put the dates into the calendar and forward a link for participation in the trials for the ANT project.

Learnscope 07 - RI Project

We have a new project this year Gen-E - Engaging the Y Generation in Education. This project is based on last year's elearn 4 health so I have been evolving resources to suit.
Our first two day workshop is on this Thursday and Friday. Will be good to get the team together for networking.

Podcasting

With the learnscope team we discussed podcasting in our last chat. It is interesting to see the thoughts and feelings of others with this new technology. There is a lot of information around about podcasting and a lot of it is really technical talk which can make it seem quite confusing. The actual listening to and subscribing to of podcasts is not that difficult. Getting a podcast to my pc and transferring to my iPod is easy, it just sounds hard.

It has been good to get a few "newbies" loaded up with the tools (iTunes and an iPod) and testing out the technology and see how they find it, and whether it will be a good tool for delivery in their teaching areas.