Monday, 27 October 2008
Online activities for action learning sets
We've been setting up some online spaces to support action learning sets for groups of businesspeople. These groups have some face to face meetings and the online space is to support these. In such cases we don't need strictly defined e-tivities. Action learning is defined by the participants themselves. The online activity is clearly simply to continue discussion. For an e-moderator the job is to facilitate this continuing discussion in a hands-off kind of way. There is no need to set a topic, although it might be useful to summarise and reframe any topics that have come out in the face to face action learning sets just as a reminder to participants about what they may decide to continue the discussions about here.
Action Learning Sets are very similar to Communities of Practice in that the topics come from the participants and the e-moderator's job is to facilitate (not lead) discussion - the ideal e-moderator in this context is virtually invisible, enabling from the sidelines, dealing with technical problems and access, providing information about the system, sending out emails reminding people to take part. People will also need to be assured of confidentiality.
The subject matter expert (live workshop facilitator) may or may not be part of the online discussion - but they will be better able to facilitate future workshops if they have at least popped in to read the discussions or had some kind of report back to them. (If a report of the online discussions is required to feedback to the next live workshop, for example, then the e-moderator's job will be to facilitate the choice of someone from the group do that if necessary, advise on time-scales etc.)Labels: action learning, communities, e-moderating, elearning, emoderator, online action learning sets, online communities
posted by Helen Whitehead 1:31 PM
Thursday, 24 July 2008
On being an expert in elearning and online communities
Quotations can be puzzling, irrelevant and downright incomprehensible, and sometimes I wonder why I bother to read them - but on my iGoogle page I have "Quotes of the Day". I find that random quotes are at least as relevant to my life as any horoscope would be! Sometimes, even, the quotes are truly inspiring.
Recently one of my daily quotes came up as:My definition of an expert in any field is a person who knows enough about what's really going on to be scared. - P J PlaugerApparently this is a quote from Computer Language, March 1983, and Mr Plauger is an SF writer and an expert in the C programming language.
This one spoke to me - as I pride myself on being an expert in several aspects of elearning and online community planning, management and facilitation, and just recently I have been wondering why I sometimes feel scared. Mr Plauger is right. If you are an expert then you are at the level where you know what you know - and you also know how much you don't know. Or in the case of technology - you know how fast it is moving and therefore how alert you have to be to keep up.
Keeping up with technology and the ways it is used for bringing people together for learning, for sharing and for work is a challenge, but it's also very exciting. Like performers and mountaineers, it's healthy to be scared sometimes. It keeps you on the edge.Labels: elearning, online communities
posted by Helen Whitehead 7:52 AM
Monday, 9 June 2008
Best Practice: Summary: Distinguishing Learning Communities and Communities of Practice (CoP)
This is a summary by Lynn Tveskov of part of the recent discussion in the Best Practice Models community on Communities of Practice. From here this post is all Lynn's summary:
In the spirit of the practice we are setting up around public blogging about our discussion, I will put names to distinct ideas and comments in the summary. Contributors to the discussion were: Sylvia Currie, Alex Hardman, Jenny Mackness, Nana Matsunaga, Alberto Ramirez, Glynn Skerratt, Bronwyn Stuckey, Jack Tseng, Lynn Tveskov, Etienne Wenger, Helen Walmsley, Carole Weale, Helen Whitehead, Bill Williams, Rowin Young
Helen Whitehead put together this wonderful side-by-side comparison and I filled it in with content from the discussion.
Learning community
Community of Practice
The essential goal is to pursue some academic objective. (Alberto Ramirez)
CoP can pursue any kind of purpose. (Alberto Ramirez)
Learning agenda may be set.
Learning "evolves" and can be "accidental" (Nana Matsunaga)
All participants join at the same time
Participants join (and leave) at different times
Clear motivation to take part - it's part of their course
Voluntary: Have to be motivated by "what's in it for me"
Participants move (and can be guided through) community-building and group-forming activities (cf Salmon's 5-stage model)
Members of the community are at different stages, though the community can move as a whole through stages (but not the same ones as Salmon's model)
Can become a community of practice. You can try to set up the conditions for a community of practice to develop
Learning takes place but is more informal than in a course-based community
Tutor-led and facilitated; easier to facilitate.
May be facilitated but members have much more ownership. More challenging to facilitate
Likely to be more hierarchical in structure, which will influence relationships (Jenny Mackness)
In a community the core group or group of leaders will probably have a less hierarchical relationship with members.
(Jenny Mackness)
Responsible for one’s own learning
You take responsibility for more than your own learning in a community.
(Bronwyn Stuckey)
Formal learning at the core
Might include formal learning but it is not the core. (Bronwyn Stuckey)
Learners may or may not take on the role of practitioners.
Learning is closely associated with what you do/practice. It is more than an interest it is about enactment. Learning is grounded in real experience but the learners are in the role of the practitioner, behaving as a member of the profession they aspire to be part of. So more than examining at an authentic task - being in an authentic roleYou are learning it in order to enact it, apply it, refine what you do - not just know it. (Bronwyn Stuckey)
“…the "social body" of a classroom or a course. In this case, it does refer to an "institutional" structure, which…may or may not become a community of practice, or any kind of community at all.”
…if by "learning community" people simply mean that a group of students have peer-to-peer learning-related interactions. In this case, the community of practice concept is more a heuristic than a goal, and it seems definitely "easier" and also usually more realistic given the life trajectories of students.
(Etienne Wenger)
Development can be more organic or spontaneous, independent of organizational structure.
“Good CoPs develop from the ground up – if prospective participants simply *want* to be part of it and contribute to it then that’s of much higher value than a top-down approach trying to create a framework that the authors think might be attractive. Once started and growing, the natural evolution of the community will take care of overall direction and critical mass.” (Glynn Skerratt)
Learners negotiate the building of shared meaning.
Members negotiate not only shared meaning, but also the structure of participation (Alberto Ramirez)
Other Points
- Not all learning communities or courses can or should be communities of practice.
- Community of practice perspectives can usefully inform the design of traditional courses and learning communities, perhaps even leading to change in a system or institutional culture.
Bronwyn Stuckey
Would we want all courses to be communities? I don't think so. I know when I worked in learning development with people preparing regulatory accounting courses - they were about learning the laws and knowing them inside out and passing the regulatory tests...the application was held until later when you were in practice - and then could join a community. This was a necessity in this particular course.
Alex Hardman
There is a time and a place for community within learning and a time and a place for hiding yourself away and reading the texts.
Jenny Mackness
[A teacher] can espouse to the values of a community of practice. Thinking of a course as a community of practice will influence the way in which the course is designed and how it will be taught.
Etienne Wenger
It is often the case that the membership from the outside that students bring to the classroom will make it difficult to create a community inside the classroom without acknowledging and honoring the conflicts in identity and practice that this creates for students.
At the same time, I think it is also useful to hold these perspectives as distinct so as to be clear that you can hold one without committing to the others. So you may use a "community heuristic" in your design without having to worry about whether students are "really" becoming a community. Or you may see that a strongly instructor-led learning event actually opens students to the realities of a target community in an experiential way. Different combinations are possible, and valid if applied for the right purpose.
Labels: communities of practice, CoPs, elearning, learning communities, online communities
posted by Helen Whitehead 8:26 AM
Monday, 12 May 2008
Technology stewardship
A post from 2006 in Learning Alliances defines the concept of "technology stewardship"
"Technology stewards are people with enough experience of the workings of a community to understand its technology needs, and enough experience with technology to take leadership in addressing those needs. Stewardship typically includes selecting and configuring technology, as well as supporting its use in the practice of the community."
I guess that's certainly what I am - a technology steward - but if the phraseology hasn't caught on in the time since Dec 2006, then it obviously doesn't mean as much to the IT and community-using population in general. Neither has "e-moderator" caught on outside the UK, although it's a very similar role - while the e-moderator doesn't necessarily select and configure the technology, many do have this function and expertise, and I suspect they are of more use to a community if they do.Labels: communities of practice, e-facilitation, e-moderating, emoderating, online communities, online community, technology-stewardship
posted by Helen Whitehead 10:28 AM
Monday, 21 April 2008
Analysing communities for the key participants
There are all sorts of reasons why one wants to analyse an online community - finding out who are the busiest and most informative posters is one possible requirement. I just spotted an old article from New Scientist (well, July 2007) that describes how researchers at Cornell University, New York, and Microsoft Research in Washington State have developed a way to analyse postings and the relationships between them to find out who are the movers and shakers in a community. Of course as they studied Usenet groups, it isn't exactly cutting edge research, but it reminds me that there are many methods for analysing interactions, and i really should bring more of them together in a blog post some day.
Research as far back as usenet analyses let alone more recently has shown that the activities of certain influential people are key to the success or otherwise of a community. Anyone who has lost a community due to a strong individual or group stifling or driving off others, knows it can work both ways. Any community manager worth their salt will have developed ways to deal with such people.Labels: communities of practice, e-moderating, e-moderation, emoderating, online communities, online community
posted by Helen Whitehead 5:18 PM
Tuesday, 26 February 2008
Today's interesting links!
Pew internet research:
"Teens and Social Media: The use of social media gains a greater foothold in teen life as they embrace the conversational nature of interactive online media."
http://www.pewinternet.org/PPF/ r/230/report_ display.asp
Designing communities presentation
by Christina Wodtke:
http://www.slideshare.net/cwodtke/ designing- communities10150 7
Free stock photos
http://www.sxc.hu/
Wikis in plain English
http://www.commoncraft.com/video-wikis-plain-english
(The other videos by the same people are excellent explanations of Web 2.0 concepts as well)
Talent
http://www.talent.ac.uk/
the online community for adult literacy, numeracy and ESOL teachers and anyone interested in good practice in the teaching and learning of adults and young people with language, literacy and numeracy needs.Articles by Helen Beetham on the topic of models:
- http://www.elt.ac.uk/ELT%20documents/EFFECTS/Vision.pdf
- http://www.eres.ac.uk/source/docs/pub-ou-47.pdf
Labels: internet research, links, models, online communities, photos, Web 2.0, wikis
posted by Helen Whitehead 7:50 AM
Monday, 3 December 2007
Advent (of technology) calendar
This December at ELKS (the community of expertise which I manage for the UN's Global Alliance for ICT in Development initiative) we've adapted a December tradition to produce an "Advent of technology" Calendar - with a resource, tool or tip about e-learning for every day of December.There are 30 days to fill - so we need your contributions! Tell us what tool (including software, hardware or gadgets), or what resource (such as website), or what conference, journal, model of best practice, or even person has greatly impacted on your practice as a teacher using technology. What's been the greatest boon? What changed your life? Well - at least what changed your teaching practice, at least a little!
Email helen.whitehead AT le.ac.uk with your suggestions to add to our calendar, the sooner the better. If you can accompany it with a photo related to your location (as square as possible), that would be even better. You'll see December 2nd is a view up the Attenborough Tower at the University of Leicester, where the Beyond Distance Research Alliance (where ELKS is based) has its offices.
There's also a discussion - please let us know what your tool, resource etc. means to you.
To find the Advent Calendar go to ELKS and click on Showcase in the left hand menu. Click on the Advent of technology Calendar then double-click on today's picture and "view details" to see the resource behind it. You don't have to login to see the calendar.
If you have an interest in the role of e-learning in development, and would like to become a member of ELKS, just get in touch with me and I'll send you a password. helen.whitehead AT le.ac.uk
Labels: calendar, e-learning, elearning, elearning tools, ELKS, learning futures, online communities, UN, UN-GAID, universities
posted by Helen Whitehead 9:39 AM
Wednesday, 8 August 2007
Community cycling...
I've just found out that my local Freecycle group has changed affiliation. They are now part of Realcycle. The local group has left the Freecycle network for a variety of reasons indicative of a breakdown of community. I can see Freecycle's point of view - they want to "upgrade" the community to a centralised network. It's fairly inevitable that they will lose people on the way - it's a natural consequence - not everyone will agree with the ethos of the new community.
Groups that do not agree have every right to split off and find their own way. I must say I do also see the local group's points as well. A concept that started in America is probably not going to be right for British communities in the end.For community managers it is a message to manage volunteers very carefully. If you give the members ownership of their community, then they must be consulted and a democratic process must take place. If policies and structures are imposed then individuals and groups must feel free to reject them by rejecting the whole concept.
The departing group say:
- Many moderators are concerned about the recent Freecycle response to the DEFRA invitation. We do not believe that Freecycle UK should adopt a political stance other than its own remit to keep landfill waste down.
- Those moderators, who stated their wish that the Directors ofFreecycleUK should not take it upon themselves to put forward views that purport to represent the UK Freecycle membership (currently at 770,000), have been ignored.
- Freecycle is currently developing a new website. It is widely believed that this new website will centralise Freecycle groups so that the community aspect is diluted or even lost altogether. There may be no local point of contact, i.e. local moderators.
We are told that the transition to the new website will be entirely voluntary. Perhaps in the beginning, yes, but Freecycle will eventually insist that all groups migrate from their current Yahoo platform to the new site or lose their listing on the directory.- Throughout the Freecycle global community any moderators who question or offer an alternative viewpoint have found themselves on permanent moderation on Freecycle discussion groups or even had their groups taken from them.
- Freecycle is in a state of disarray and confusion at the present time. Many groups have been locked down, moderators removed from their groups (bear in mind that all mods give their time voluntarily and many have spent several years building up their groups in order to benefit their community) and there is no one central source of information.
- TFN's (The Freecycle Network) main sponsor in the U.S. is a company called Waste Management Inc. This company has, in the past been guilty of (and fined for) several incidents involving the illegal dumping of toxic waste.
- Possible breaches of YahooGroups terms of service.
Labels: freecycle, local communities, online communities, online community, realcycle, sustainability
posted by Helen Whitehead 3:50 PM
Saturday, 4 August 2007
E-books on online community
Useful resources, especially for beginners
Otis Online Tutoring e-Book
NCSL's e-learning facilitation toolkit and 70,000 heads are better than oneLabels: e-learning, e-moderating, e-moderation, e-moderator, ebook, elearning, emoderating, online communities, online community, online learning, online tutor, online tutoring
posted by Helen Whitehead 5:53 PM
Tuesday, 3 July 2007
What is online community?
Community is not the same as commonalityPeople at a bus stop are not a community. people who go online are not a community.
"A community is a group of people who form relationships over time by interacting regularly around shared experiences, which are of interest to all of them for varying individual reasons." Jake McKeeLabels: e-facilitation, e-learning, e-moderation, nlabwomen, nlabwomen07, online communities, online community
posted by Helen Whitehead 9:46 PM
Sunday, 10 June 2007
Meg Pickard at Women, Business and Blogging
The first speaker at the Women Business & Blogging conference at DMU on Friday (8th June) was Meg Pickard, Head of Communities and User Experience for Guardian Unlimited. She spoke about "Whose Web is it anyway".
Meg introduced us to the levels of a user's interactions with the internet starting with the easiest:
consumption: users now can consume content without even visiting the site it comes from
interaction: basic interaction involves comments & conversation hosted by the creator - when it comes to commenting and interaction it's "not always polite and genteel – can be rowdy but is still your turf, i.e. 'my gaff, my rules'." Then people start responding to your content in their own spaces can't control it - may not eve know about it! Invisible interaction includes - attention data - using a feed reader - user/view count
curation: a new way of people being creative by involvement in creation and aggregation like feed readers. New technologies make it easier to do this - e.g., folksonomy, delicious, recommendations like digg. Squidoo - people creating lenses about things - bring in sites etc. - adding metadata. Other people can be creative with your content! Examples : Mashups - eg Yahoo pipes, remixing feeds and open data sources across the web for new purposes
creation: Content creation - contribution - e.g., photos on BBC website, youtube, flickr - user-generated content: the user has the control.
Meg went on to look at what makes a community.
Communities are good for users because they:
- increase relevancy
- increase emotional connection to the online experience
- increase social connection to each other
- add depth to conversations
Communities are useful to publishers and businesses because they:
- make experiences more relevant and human
- improve the quality of content
- increase usage
- increase revenue
Meg's "Holy Trinity" of community management include:
- Human solutions - moderators, policies, processes, consistency of approach
- Technical solutions - moderation platform, profiles, user management tools, ratings, etc.
- Editorial solutions (the one people forget) - proposition, framing of debate, tone of voice, reward, interaction
Personally I'd put the human and editorial solutions in together as all those things in editorial solutions are, for me, part of moderating, but it's true that many who start communities think of the technical aspects, sometimes think of the human aspects but miss out on the editorial aspects and the resources that need to be put into it.
Meg pointed out that the user engagement cycle of
casual - > connected - > committed - > catalyst
visiting registering engaging identifying/evangelist
could be mapped on the user engagement cycle.
Labels: blogging, interaction, Meg Pickard, nlabwomen, nlabwomen07, online communities, Web 2.0
posted by Helen Whitehead 3:18 PM
