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!!!!).