Another evaluation of our mini conference

When I reread my previous evaluation I started off by evaluating the mini conference but ended by evaluating the course. Must have been post evaluation amnesia so will try again.
1. What went well and what didn't go well - I think the general flow of the session was logical and easy to understand and follow. The subject was relevant to our course and was applicable to all participants despite the platform being used in a health organisation. This point is important if different types of participants will be attending We ran to time nand I felt we were not rushed or pushed for time. I know at one stage Malcolm was a little worried we were running late but I was able to reassure him through a chat message seen only by the staff which made it easy to manage. I had watched the other facilitated sessions throughout the course to see what time they kept and it generally followed the same plan of 5 - 10 minute introduction / house keeping, 20 - 30 minute presentation followed by questions and summary.
What didn't go well - we didn't advertise soon enough or wide enough. This was due to not finalising our topic exactly till the last minute and therefore were unable to put out the correct information soon enough.

2. How the event was organised and promoted - adequate info, support & relevance. I felt there was enough information in the advertising although I found this hard to do on Twitter due to the word count. If I had my time again, I would just include my blog url so to redirect them to my site so they can check out the full details. This also provides extra traffic to my blog which is only a good thing. I don't think we advertised long enough or wide enough. I felt able to offer technical support as this was one of the biggest issues for me. I assisted a brand new user how to navigate from the start and she only managed to get on 2 minutes before we started. I didn't want to leave her so had a plan B if she was unable to access Elluminate and I had to go. As stated before I thought the session was relevant to the course and all our participants.

3. Event was managed & conducted smoothly - yes I think this occurred, in saying that, it felt like it did to me. I was very prepared, we had rehearsed and each of us had a back up plan for the other. I was obsessed with having a back up plan for everything - my OCD coming out with avengence.

4. Efforts were made to ensure participants knew where they were supposed to be and when and arranged technical support. Yes I felt that the course wiki and advertising details were quite explicit and we didn't seem to lose anyone that said that they would be coming. I noticed some groups asked for a reply to say if you were coming. This might have been a good idea, more so to alleviate us of the worry that potentially no one would turn up - now that would be awful.

5. How you set the stage, made introductions, remained neutral - I felt we could have done a little more introducing of ourselves to help people know who we were. I thought this was too brief. As for remaining neutral - I think this may have been easier had I not been involved with the subject matter that happened to be close to my heart at the time. I wonder what it would be like to faciliate an event that you knew nothing about?

6. Did you go round , draw closure and indicate where recordings would be? - I felt we went round and I kept a note of who had asked a question and the subject matter of that question. Malcolm did the summarising and I supported him in this. I thought it was good how Malcolm put over the chat box that people could interupt and ask a question or wait till the end a the beginning of the presentation. It intially felt peopel were a bit reluctant to engage and so I think this broke the ice a little. In the future I would like to go around everyone in the introductions and just to do a quick intro to get people in the right frame of mind to engage.

7. Feedback from the audience - was very positive. I liked how someone commented it was the first time she felt her voice /opinion was asked for which made me feel like I had really listened to the participants ( a skill I have been trying to improve).

8. How would you do things in the future? - overall the session went well, Just a few twicking things to do - advertising, general confidence with being able to solve IT problems, sorting out why I can not upload a power point presentation.

I enjoyed it and would do it again tommorrow.

Recording of our mini conference 1.11.10

Here is the recording of our mini conference from 1.11.10. Driving change: Introducing a virtual education and training portal into a large organisation / network - the opportunities and challenges. Thankyou to those of you who attended and we look forward to your feedback.
Regards Jillian & Malcolm

My evaluation of our mini conference

Overall I am generally please with how the session turned out. I spent alot of time (and some would say too much time) preparing down to the enth degree and having back up plans for absolutely everything. My biggest fear was not being able to manage the technology and associated problems - something out of my control. (I realise that I am a total control freak and do not like anything to be outside of my control). I have found online facilitating similar in lots of ways to my facilitation of the student midwife real world environment however it is the unpredictability of the virtual world that scares me. All in all the things I will take away from this course are:
1. Learning new technology is very time comsuming and at times frustrating. Without the desire to learn more, the obstacles would be overwhelming for an apathetic learner. Therefore we need to engage, excite and arouse the learner to tweek their interest and bring them to the onine world of learning
2. Give them reasons to engage. Advertise the benefits to them. Sell them the product / site / technology. Sales plays a big part in getting them to the site. Social networking plays a big part in keeping them there. Use this to your advantage.
3. A plethora of tools awaits us - ever growing, ever changing. Be patient, have a go and have fun as you engage with people from all walks of life. It will open doors and provide access to people you never knew existed.
4. Don't take it all too serious. Now that my uni semester is all but over, maybe now I can relax a little more and really enjoy the online journey. With no assessments hanging in the balance, I can just enjoy the experience. Would love to have another go at it when it is just for fun.
5. The process of online facilitation from start to finish is lengthy, complicated and at times frustrating however it has improved my skills exponentionally because I had to do it over and over again. I am proud of myself for silly things like being able to hyperlink tiny URLs, edit a wiki, work a world time clock, help someone new come into Elluminate -walk them through the process and trouble shoot. I need to work on getting better at Twitter - not really getting the whole concept yet, understanding more technical jargon and being able to sell / advertise things better online.
Overall I have thoroughly enjoyed the course and learnt heaps. Thanks to Sarah for excellent you tube videos (an idiots guide on how to....do anything) these really made a difference to being able to do things without having to ask you all the time LOL!!! Thankyou to all the participants for your encouragement, sharing of knowledge and ideas and to my family who has supported me in this very time consuming process of online learning.

The night before.......

Well, it feels like the night before a big public speaking event. I'm not usually nervous as I find this type of work comes very natural - I love to talk. However I can't help feeling I've forgotten something. Have I given enough details on where to find the mini conference, have I advertised enough, will anyone turn up, what happens if my internet falls apart - a real possibility after the week I've had - hence why I've decided to borrow my neighbours internet connection just to be on the safe side. When I'm teaching, I know my subject very well so even if I lost everything, I have it stored in my brain and know I could talk without any support. Not so in this world of online facilitating. My control is only in the facilitation, not the presentation - such a wierd feeling!!!!
Important (as a wise facilitator said to me earlier this week) not to panic and not to take it so seriously. Easier said then done for a perfectionist like me. Must keep it in perspective - this environment has been so supportive of learning and making mistakes. As I tell my children and students - you do your best learning from your mistakes - wonder why I find that line hard to swallow at 10pm the night before???????

Feedback from the mini conference

Thankyou for providing us with your feedback. If you could answer a few simple questions and leave your comments it would be much appreciated.
1. What did you learn in the session?
2. How can you apply this knowledge to your future work?
3. Any further feedback that you feel would benefit us.

Mini Conference

Well the time has finally arrived for us to test our skills and 'walk the talk'. Our mini conference (Malcolm Lewis and I will be facilitating) is due to be held on Monday 1st Nov at 11am Brisbane time. For world clock times: http://tinyurl.com/2crpuhk .

For those of you interested in gaining an understanding about the opportunities and challenges that impact on participants uptake and engagement in a new education and training e-platform, please join us for what we hope will be an interesting and lively session.

Kayleen Gordon will be our guest speaker (with over 26 years in education, a Masters in Education specialising in e-learning) and is the Assistant Director of Nursing for the new QLD Health Education and Training portal - ClinEdQ. She has first hand experience about the challenges faced by organisations and individuals as they try and engage people with online learning / networking.

Please join us if you are interested in just hearing about Kayleen's experiences or have some suggestions of your own. Kayleen will also discuss some strategies on how best to encourage engagement and uptake of a new site.

Information on how to access Elluminate can be found here: http://facilitatingonlinecommunities.blogspot.com/2010/05/how-to-use-elluminate-for-class.html
The link for the room can be found here: http://elluminate.tekotago.ac.nz/join_meeting.html?meetingId=1260253889796

If you are new to Elluminate and need to test your audio and mic, please enter into Elluminate at least 20 min before the scheduled start time so Malcolm and I can assist you.

To leave your feedback, we would appreciate if could answer the following 2 questions via your comments:
1. What did you learn in this session?
2. How can you apply this to your future work?
3. Any further feedback that you feel would benefit us.

We look forward to seeing as many of you as possible.

Week 10 - Cultural competence

I will have to admit that my experience with cultural competence is very limited both in the real world and online. I have had more to do with mothers with disabilities (sight, hearing and learning) then I have had with different languages or cultures. I have particiated in my organisations cultural awareness program and learnt about cultural sensitivity in pregnancy and child birth but have really not had much opportunity to practice and improve my cultural competence. Even my experiences in teaching at university have seen the vast majority of my students fall into the white middle class anglo saxon group. I think the best I can do in relation to being a culturally competent facilitator is to learn as much as I can about the subject and then maybe go looking for opportunities to practice these skills because they are clearly not coming up in my current work environment.

I have a feeling of ' I won't know what I don't know' so I better start searching out information about this subject as I am unsure how I would ensure the resources, images and communication tools and activities were culturally appropriate if I don't know what is and isn't appropriate. Many issues to consider. The activities provided some good back ground reading and food for thought.
Just a thought - If you have say 3 or 4 different cultural backgrounds in your e-group and there are things within each culture that are not appropriate for the other culture to see, hear about or discuss, how do you cater for everyone or am I being too simplistic here? (eg: female circumcision????)

Week 9 - my experiences of Twitter so far

It annoys me when I don't get the opportunity to take part in the organised session for the week - that happened this week with the twitter session due to school holidays creeping up on me & a 7 year old birthday party etc. I find I don't get to practice with a group of people which them leaves me floundering and time wasting as I try and navigate my way around the new tool. I lose valuable play time and the chance to ask stupid questions - which I know is OK in this environment. I tried to follow the twitter session but found lots of short messages with lots of highlighted words and what appeared to be coded messages. I couldn't really follow any sort of conversation and things seemed to be repeated (eg: Sarah said 3 times that they were starting in 75 minutes) So I am unsure if I am doing it correctly. I would like to understand how to use twitter properly and can see the benefits, so will have to have a good play when time permits.

Week 8 - using new knowledge

What I am learning in this course is not only benefiting me in my work environment but also making my life easier and more productive in my personal life. For example: I am rewriting my local netball association's constitution and have decided to use google docs (has made my life so much easier to collaborate with the other girls who are helping me do it) and saved confusion with many different versions.

Learning about wiki's has given me another option in relation to using it as a platform for my online CoP within my health organisation. I have found a wiki set up by a previous FO 2008 student from NZ specifically for midwives. No point reinventing the wheel.

Although probably the best collaborative moment that occured this week was through networking. I came across a lady who has been given the project within QLD Health to set up 'Clinical Education QLD - Clin Ed Q". She has designed a portal based on Share Net to facilitate education, training, blogs, personalised - web pages, e-portfolio, create personalised teams etc all at the one site. What I liked about it was that it was more of a 'bringing together of all the resources and directed you to the links rather than having to keep all the information updated solely by QLD Health. It enabled the viewer to be as personalised as they wanted to or just browse. At the moment it only has the capacity to interact with QLD health employees but come December it is hoped that people from outside can be invited in to participate. It has been piloted at 3 sites and will be distributed to all QLD Health workers in the next few weeks. Very exciting news!!!!!

Week 8 - working collaboratively and use of Dim Dim

I had my first experience in Dim Dim. I went in with an open mind, prepared for things to not be as efficient as Elluminate. My experience was as expected but it has not deterred me from giving it another go based on a few reasons. Firstly, what I have read about Dim Dim and what Sarah has said about the platform did not match the experience (in terms of voice delay and drop outs) so I am willing to give it another go. Also the fact that it is free, gives cash strapped organisations the ability to at least have a forum in the virtual world - which would be a big consideration for many. Another positive point is that there is no downloading of programmes etc - benefit to less computer savy participants. So all in all - I will try again at another time, although not necessarily in a hurry.

As for working collaboratively, I have learnt about google docs, wiki's and continue to hone my skills in blogging. I sometimes find looking at and replying to other people's blogs a little cumbersome and a lengthy process but have discovered that this is because I go off on tangents. I see something of interest in their blog, follow the link and then maybe follow another link and find I forget where I'm up to. I am so interested in making sure I learn as much as possible that I get distracted easily. I find the same thing happens when I complete the weekly activities - never one to miss out on any opportunity to earn something new. So I will try a new method this week - complete the activity I am on and keep a note of new sites etc to visit on a 'to do list'. Will see if that improves my priorty management (as opposed to time management - another thing I learnt about this week on another tangent. lol!!!!).

All coming together

Through serendipitous moments and networking that have come about due to this course, I am meeting people I would never have had the opportunity to meet before. Not only am I learning about a whole new world that has opened up to me but there is a reciprocity vibe in the air that keeps surprising me everywhere I look.
2 years ago I took 12 months long service leave to rescue myself, my health and most of all my marriage and my family. Turning my life around, ment letting go of my passion / job - midwifery and by doing so, I was able to spend time caring for myself and my family. It was during those special but difficult months that I learned to be still, live in the moment and appreciate what I have. So here I am - living in the moment, happily married, healthy and enjoying where life is taking me. It is introducing me to people like Sarah Stewart and Malcolm Lewis who share the same passion for life and I am forever thankful that I have had the opportunity to join this course and re-ignite the passion I feel for life. I only hope that I can give back what has come my way.

My mini conference topic

My mini conference topic will be looking at the process, benefits and restrictions in trying to develop an online forum for multidisciplinary maternity health professionals in a large organisation (my large organisation is QLD Health). I have come across many road blocks and am undecided about which platform to use, whether to use an existing one, whether to use an intranet site (only accessible at work) or use a well known, already established platform that will provide immediate numbers. My research so far has shown that despite people thinking it is a good idea, most people are reluctant to engage or are appathetic which means only a few select do, which stifles the discussion. I am concerned about confidentialty issues if I keep it just within the hospital and also this prevents network building and new ideas flowing in because everyone knows what everyone knows. Also I feel people don't really have the time to go online at work and so can see the benefit for an offline site. I would like to hold a synchronous event in Elluminate or Dim Dim if I like it better (will wait and see after tommorrow) I would like to invite people who have: tried to set something like this up and running in a large organisation, people who have engaged in a discussion forum like this and people who have facilitated a discussion forum - time it took, pros & cons. I would appreciate everybodies feedback and thoughts on this topic.

Week 7 - Elluminate session on social networking

I really enjoyed the session in Elluminate this afternoon for 3 reasons. It was fun (we had a laugh - well I know Willie and I did), I learnt something new (how to do break out rooms and get a clean white board) and we got to mistakes / deal with no sound etc but it was OK and it felt safe, These are the best ways to learn and practice our skills and to do it with others who are learning just the same as I am makes me feel relaxed in this new learning environment. Thankyou to Sarah for re-jigging the course this year to include practice and play time through out the course before we have to do the mini conference. I can't think of a better way to learn.

Week 7 - Social networking and facilitation

Well I have had a week of extreme online activity. Joining twitter, linkedIn, following more blogs, starting another blog etc. My initial thought was how will I keep up with all this and how will I manage my time, then decided I must give them all a go before deciding which ones to use. I also don't feel like I can make a judgement call on any of them until I have used them for a while. Playing with them is definately the best way to learn. Twitter surprised me - Sarah had requested some midwifery exam questions and I was able to supply her with a whole exam I just happened to have. These sort of requests just filter out through those networks we spend so much time building and it was nice to be able to give back - reciprosity. So next time someone complains about the time it takes to manage these social network tools, just mention the word reciprosity. My initial and very short interpretation so far: Twitter (instant, requests) Facebook (social chatter, fun) LinkedIN (Professional networking) blogging (reflective thought and active discussion)

Week 6 - Skype experiences

Using Skype has been fantastic. I started using it about 4 months ago to reconnect with an old friend and have found it invaluable when I spoke to Malcolm Lewis the other day about my mini conference topic. It was great to have that visual connection of being able to see him, it adds a positive dimension to the conversation that you just don't get with audio only. I have found the video will drop out sometimes if I am on for over 20minutes (with an international caller) however Skype did behave itself for Malcolm and I. What is great is that it is free to call someone else on Skype. My husband and I spent $4500 (in 1990) on a phone bill in 10 weeks when I was in the USA working only 6 months after we met - (love is blind and very expensive) imagine how much we would have saved being able to use Skype - the mind boggles at what could potentialy be available to our children in the next 20 years - time travel!!!!

Interprofessional online community set up - SOS

After reading this week's material, I have decided on my topic for the mini conference - 'How to set up an interprofessional online community within a health care facility.' I would like to be a network weaver and build a collaborative, innovative online team of maternity care health professionals who strive for excellence, positive collaboration and engage in critical analysis of care for women, their families and the health professionals themselves. Therefore I am putting out an SOS for anyone who has attempted to or done this successfully before. It doesn't necessarily need to be in a health care facility.

Week 5 - Summarise my learning

In response to the questions posed in short.
1. What is online facilitation - the best word to describe OLF is 'guiding'. The dictionary states guiding involves assisting in an unfamilar area / accompany and explain / to supply counsel / to supervise in an advisory counsel. I see it as walking beside and providing support and structure to the learner / audience.
2. What skills do you need for OLF - patience, empathy, good problem solving skills, excellent communication skills - verbal, writing and listening, technical and topic knowledge, open manner to build a feeling of trust in the audience so they feel comfortable in an often an unfamiliar area, self reflectiveness
3. How does a OLF build an online community or network? - be present online often and in a meaningful way, use different avenues / applications, be strategic, use key words, utilise online social network access opportunities, word of mouth is powerful both online and in the real world, build your online identity to suit what and who you are wanting to attract as a network
4. Key things to remember when facilitating? - be prepared, have many back up plans, know your subject well and the technology, try to have a second person as a back up for support, be enthusiastic, be open to change and new ways, possess a healthy dose of self reflection and ability to laugh at one self
5. Difference between teaching and facilitation? - After reading week 3 - week 5 readings I feel that both terms are very similar. I think the old definiton or connation of teaching has a different meaning to that which is seen today. The old thought of teaching (all expert, all knowledgeable, powerful being telling the student the information - is slowly dying) being replaced by a 'faciliteacher' one in the same. Someone who guides, supports, encourages the learner to find / see for himself, explains and counsels when necessary and supervises as they walk along the journey of learning together - is more of what I see a faciliteacher doing.
6. Netiquette - the rules and manners of online communication

My online identity - what do I want it to be?

After listening to Week 4's session with Sarah on 'online identity', it got me thinking about the comparison to our real life identity. Having met Sarah personally last year after following her musings for awhile I feel that her online identity matches what I saw in real life. I found her to be an upfront, open person who was willing to disclose information about her herself (her life, work and personality) to make deeper connections with the people she met. I found this refreshing and exciting because I find it rare these days to come across someone who is as open as Sarah, especially to that extent. As humans we have a need to develop relationships (social or otherwise) with others. How we communicate, present our selves, behave, develop and grow impacts on how we interact with others and the level in which that relationship forms. An online identity allows a person to be as close too or as far away from the real person as they want to be. The level of control over this issue raises many concerns and call it idealistic but I too feel confortable with having my online identity match my real identity but respect those who for what ever reason do not.

Post mortem of my 1st facilitation online experience

Well as with all new experiences, it wasn't as bad as I thought. My main fear was a technically disaster that I did not know how to fix. Otherwise the preparation, faciliatation and evaluation of the meeting was similar in a lot of ways to face to face facilitation. The things I have taken from this experience are:

• Be prepared, have a back up plan on paper (My mother brain will often leave me mid sentence and I forget what I am taking about - mothers will know what I mean)
• House keeping or ground rules to ensure eveyone knows what to do in the session
• Know your subject well
• Try and meet with your co-presentors to discuss the flow of the session, who will do what.
• Log on early (approx. 1hr) to ensure you are connected and have everything ready
• Have a practice a few days before hand to get a grasp on what the screen looks like in 'staff privledges mode' and what you have to do with it. Sarah will need to give you this access.
• Handy to faciliatate with 2 people (1 with lots of knowledge and one without - is always a benefit)
• This exercise increases your listening and multi tasking skills (I need to practice my listeneing skills)
• Have fun!!!

First time at facilitating online

Well I am preparing for my first attempt at faciliating online tommorrow morning. I have read all the pre-reading, prepared an outline of what I have to say, typed a back up plan of what Chris has to say, saved Terry's power point in case she needs a back up and will connect to skype in case Elluminate dies (heaven forbid!!!) I am getting onto Elluminate an hour early just to make sure I am connected and functioning and hope and pray the 4 kids wake up early in the morning (in a good mood) and everything goes to plan. The meeting is at 9am in the morning (Brisbane time) which is just after the school run, so no one better forget their lunch or show and tell because we are not going back tommorrow. Funny, it feels just like the day before I have to give a big presentaion at uni. Lots of planning (Plan A, B, C and Z just in case). Although at least if I make a mistake tommorrow, it is all part of the learning process!!!!

Online tools = wonderful networking opportunities

My thoughts so far into the 3rd week- this course has given me wonderful opportunities to network with people I may never have come in contact with before. Online people seem more willing to help you and are prepared to offer all sorts of information and assistance. I can't say I'm feeling comfortable with any of the mediums / tools yet but I am at least playing and finding my way slowly through the maze of new tools. I am concentrating on my blog, 2-3 other blogs, skype, wiki educator and OFC blog. My email is getting out of control so need to figure out a way to continue to make it easy for me and better manage my time. I wonder if there is a way of making the blogs from the OFC and my followed blogs go into a folder in my email inbox and not into the main inbox?

Gadgets and widgets

I am a tad confused about gadgets and widgets. I saw an ad for adsense (a blogger can use this to add ads to their blogs and get money from it and also Zemanthe - which is a gadget that allows you to boost your blogs by enabling you to add pictures, links etc to your blogs. Do I have this information correst? and if so is it wise to use things like Zemanthe? I wouldn't use adsense as i hate ads!!!

Preparing to start 'Online Facilitating Course' (OFC)

Well, I will say that new online technology can test the patient of a saint or in my case a frustrated mother in between school pickups and exchanging faulty headsets (AH AH AH). Despite these hiccups - once you get the hang of it, it is quiet addictive and I have to stop myself following every blog and playing with Elluminate. I have started a list of definitons (blog, wiki, podcast, blogging etc) and brief notes to keep the new knowledge I am acquiring in some form of order. Playing on Elluminate is amazing - so real time and face to face contact. It is easy to understand how exciting it will be to one day catch up with people thousands of miles away that you have only met in the virtual world. I look forward to creating and learning together.

Facilitating online course

I have decided to enrol in Sarah's online facilitation course as part of my Masters in Midwifery course that I will complete in November. As a Midwifery educator, I am interested in utilising the online medium to engage and educate not only midwifery students but any profession involved in maternity care. I hope that after I have completed this course, I will be able to design and implement my own obstetric emergency online workshop that will have a multi-disciplinary approach. I look forward to meeting people from all over the world - another wonderful advantage of online communication and learning.