Onlline Facilitation

Online Facilitation is a whole new 'teaching' ballgame and it is taking me back to my early teaching and then lecturing days - when I really had to think about the processes I needed to go through when presenting my classes. As Katriona mentioned there are a whole set of new facilitating skills to be developed when using this mode of presenting a learning environment - especially when you don't ever see the students in a face to face environment.

I believe that if it is possible to get participants together for regular workshops (like our SA Start up programme) then information can be shared a lot more quickly and more interestingly. However, if this is not always possible I believe a lot of "visuals" - photos of facilitators and participants; visuals of working environments would be important to keep the participants focussed. Perhaps webcam's during chat sessions would be handy.

Online facilitation requires a different mode of organisation on the facilitator's behalf. They have to keep very good records of when and what people have contributed to ensure all participants are learning something. They would need to be creative about motivating people via very non-visual email (and perhaps a very good typists). They need to be attached to the computer on a daily basis.

I agree that being a participant in the SA Start up programme has given me an insight into how my students view the online learning environment. Where I previously felt they needed long winded explanations about how to "get on with it" I now realise this is boring, off-putting and un-inviting - thereby demotivating some.