Category: Learning & Teaching

Facilitating Online Communities Class

I just learned from my colleague Sylvia Currie at SCoPE that there is a new, online class that begins today–Facilitating Online Communities. Facilitated by Leigh Blackall at Otago Polytechnic in New Zealand, this seems like another of the intersting summer learning experiences to be aimed at a global audience of community facilitators and educators.

I just signed up for it, and am looking forward to several weeks of learning and meeting new colleagues. I am thinking more and more about a class as a virtual community of practice, and am hoping to learn some ways to integrate this into my online teaching, especially my upcoming Principles and Practices of Online Course Creation and Instructional Design course and the online graduate courses I will teach thereafter.

Director of Strategic Reflection

I attended an online book discussion within my organization recently, and there was a very interesting question the class facilitator ended the session with. He asked:

If we were to write our own ideal job title, what would it be? 

I thought that was the grandest thought-provoking question I have encountered in some time, and came up with “Director of Strategic Reflection.”

As a proponent of reflective practice within an ongoing learning organization, I think those of us within human resource development, adult education, communication, and organizational development would greatly benefit from more active (both structured and unstructured) reflection. How else can we identify the assumptions and patterns of behavior that stifle us from moving forward to create a more just and aware organizational structure and society itself? We who engage in organizational, management, and leadership studies know that when people within an organization are more aligned within one another and with the mission and vision, then the organization itself is stronger and healthier.

What would your ideal job title be, and what impact would it have? 

Empowering Online Learning ~ Online Book Discussion

r2d2It is turning into a busy summer of online educational technology and online community book discussions. The copy of Curtis Bonk and Ke Zhang’s new text, Empowering Online Learning: 100+ Activities for Reading, Reflecting, Displaying, and Doing, just arrived. Curt blogged about his book, and I am looking forward to beginning the discussion at SCoPE.

As Curt explains in the text, R2D2 in his work stands for Read, Reflect, Display, and Do. I have heard some colleagues mention concepts such as this, and my interest as an instructor and instructional designer is peaked. It seems the book is oriented toward higher and adult education, so this should fit. I am looking forward to learning a lot here!

Did I mention that this book discussion is free to join? SCoPE is a wonderful community that Sylvia Currie coordinates, and is well worth getting to know if you have any involvement at all in educational community and practice as supported through technology.

Connectivism and Connective Knowledge Online Course

I am planning to attend this fall’s Connectivism and Connective Knowledge online course, that runs from September 8 – November 29, 2008. With instructors George Siemens and Stephen Downes, it is sure to be an interesting and exciting experience that can be taken for credit through the University of Manitoba or free without the credit. Interested in joining over 1000 (at recent count) people in this MOOC (Massive Online Open Course), then you may want to do some background reading that George has gathered together.

In true online format, here are some of the course materials (over two months early!):

Course wiki ~ Connectivism Wiki
Course blog ~ Connectivism and Connective Knowledge Blog
Course email list ~ Connectivism Google Group
Different conversation aggregation ~ Pageflakes page

While I met George when he was in New York this spring, I have never met Stephen, so am looking forward to this learning experience. With the amount of preparation that has already been done, and the online materials and systems that have already been put into place for this course, I think I am already learning the best way to prepare for something like this.

With our networked world, I believe this may be part of the future of distance education.

Communities of Practice: Creating Learning Environments for Educators ~ Book Discussion

kimble Interested in an online summer book discussion about communities of practice? If so, you may want to check out the one hosted and facilitated by CPsquare, the community of practice on communities of practice.

We will be reading and discussing selected chapters from the 2-volume Communities of Practice: Creating Learning Environments for Educators, edited by Chris Kimble and Paul Hildreth. The books are not the easiest to locate, and the cheapest (and quickest) place to order is directly through the publisher (use this great discount for the pair that somebody found), which is where I got mine. To bad they are not both available via Amazon (odd, really, I think).

The event is free for members of CPsquare; otherwise it is $50 for non-members who will have to register here.

Let’s see what we can learn together this summer about communities of practice.