Archive for category: Facilitation

I don’t know about Second Life — I’m quite happy with my first one thanks!

I tagged along to a meeting last week in Second Life. I’m a complete n00b to Second Life or to anything like it. I never really got into video games post the early 80′s Atari fad, preferring to play music or sport. So this is all ‘weird and wonderful’ stuff to me and I was quite looking forward to this meeting as part the course.

But I must confess that I got quite frustrated with it. One of the most difficult things was not being able to control my avatar. It was quite off-putting. I couldn’t seem to work out even the most basic of functions, like how to sit down. I persisted, but it still felt quite awkward and unintuitive. Why is it that someone who is quite tech savvy (I’m certainly no neophyte), can be so lame?

This first experience with SL reinforced an important point about the various barriers we face as participants and facilitators when we are interacting online. We should never assume that everyone is competent nor comfortable with the medium. Some of the participants of FOC08 have expressed similar feelings about blogging and commenting on others blogs. Just because all of these ‘tools’ are available in the same ‘space’ (online) we’re used to interacting in, doesn’t mean that they aren’t different or have their own nuances and subtleties. We have to remain mindful and aware of that. As facilitators, patient and vigilant.

I can imagine how Second Life might be useful for facilitating events and creating online communities. It certainly provides for a more interactive space online when compared with non-visual mediums like email and bulletin boards. It brings together a unique blend of auditory, visual and cognitive stimulation, although I’m not convinced that helps those of us who find it difficult to multi-task or concentrate on more than one thing at a time.

All is not lost. I’m prepared to give it another go. I’m sure it’s not all that hard.

I haven’t spend a lot of time in online discussion forums. As I mentioned at the start the Facilitating Online Communities course, I find it difficult to follow threaded conversations online. I find them too volumous and over-bearing. I’ve also avoided them because I sense (and based on second-hand anecdotes), that there is quite a bit of postulating and oneupmanship. Perhaps a result of poor facilitation? Nevertheless, it is off-putting. I don’t have the desire to become embroiled in meaningless debates and arguments over semantics.

One of the lists I do subscribe to is the Australasian Facilitators Network discussion forum. The current archive is only available to the list members, although membership and the ‘structure’ of the ”organisation’ is loose and informal.

The list is, in my opinion, brilliantly moderated by Bob Dick. He is a very good communicator – clear and concise; provides very good instructions on list management issues; and is mostly invisible as a faciliator, but very diplomatic and open when dealing with any issues that arise.

Is it a community? Using McMillan and Chavis (1986) well-regarded conceptualization of a sense of Community [1], I believe that it is. To varying degrees, I’m sure that there are:

• Feelings of membership – feelings of belonging to, and identifying with, the community;
• Feelings of influence – feelings of having influence on, and being influenced by, the community;
• Integration and fulfillment of needs – feelings of being supported by others in the community while also supporting them; and
• Shared emotional connection – feelings of relationships, shared history, and a “spirit” of community.

But I don’t think the list IS the community – a community has built around the list. It’s like Nancy said in her comments on my previous post: “the network holds the set of loose ties that allow community to emerge”. This has manifested in a number of ways for me.

I have built relationships with people I met at face-to-face events that are held regularly (State-based networks). Some of those people have become close business associates and dear friends. I’ve also done further training and personal development as a result of attending these meetings and understanding the pitfalls and personalities involved.

I am very much looking forward to attending the annual conference organised and attended by list participants and strengthening that sense of belonging to this community.

How the forum might benefit from facilitation services?

This is a tricky one to answer. Paradoxically, other facilitators can be difficult to facilitate. I think the community would benefit though, by having more co-ordinated events around particilar topics of interest or issues – perhaps in the form of an online conference or phone conference format. I know that there are currently shared resources, but I also think that the community would benefit from developing these further and developing a habit of referring to them and keeping them current – a wiki would provide a good platform.

1. Cited in Blogs as Virtual Communities by Anita Blanchard.

The foc08 task for this week is to try to determine the role and behavior of these three roles:

• Facilitator
• Moderator
• Teacher

And to attempt to describe these roles.

Let me say up-front that I totally agree with a comment on Leigh’s blog that suggests the word ‘facilitator’ is being used loosely by many people and institutions. This makes it difficult to have this sort of conversation without getting into semantics. The meanings will be different depending upon the context and also from different people’s own experiences.

Rather than try and come up with a definitive answer, what I’ve done is captured some words and thoughts about each role that sprung to mind when I reflected on them. The following is my summary:

Facilitator–guide; interested in process not content; independent/neutral; creates space for conversations.

Moderator–to me, this implies the role of referee, adjudicator or arbiter; someone who has control of the conversation; directing flow of conversation.

Teacher–this is a generalisation, and I recongnise that there is a shift away from this (I’ll address this later on), but my perception of the teacher role is based on the traditional ‘schooled’ model: authority; structure; prescribed content; transmission-based; didactic; formal; and based upon expertise.

I want to pick up on the traditional notion of teacher as the expert imparting wisdom and knowledge. This is informed, and perhaps tainted by my own experiences – particularly in the Knowledge Management domain.

Because of the sheer volume of information and exponential growth of knowledge in the twentieth century–if you’re skeptical, I recommend you check out the Did You Know?/Shift Happens presentation–it is almost impossible to master a specific domain. In other words it is increasingly difficult to be an ‘expert’.

Further specialisation and reductionism is one response to this. However, I believe that this will ultimately lead to–and require–new ways of learning, and a change in the traditional teaching role towards a more facilitative style of learning. We need to “move from ‘Sage on the Stage’ to ‘Guide on the Side’”(Kempe 2001: cited in Australian Flexible Learning Framework guide).

If I understand correctly, this is what social constructivists argue.

So what does a facilitated learning environment look like? Here’s some quick thoughts (repeating the process I used above): networked; informal; self-directed and motivated; social; meaning-making; peer-learning; experiential.

I know I haven’t answered the questions directly, but I’ve enjoyed pondering and reflecting on the different roles and empathize with Leigh’s dilemma.

Jay Cross writes:

Corporations need to replace traditional training, knowledge management, and in-house communications with something more informal, interactive, collaborative, self-service, impromptu, and flexible. Instead of pushing content, they need to be facilitating conversation.

Prompted by this morning’s foc08 conference call discussion, I feel that it would be helpful to try and summarise my thoughts on the topic ‘What is an online community?’, so I can put it to bed and move on to the next intellectual challenge.

So here goes–a wrap up and summary of my take on the meaning of community:

Not long after my first post, where I was trying to grapple with semantics and definitions, Bron told a story of a personal experience of community, reminding me of the futility of my own approach. Having spent the best part of the last 12 months working with narrative approaches, I should have known better!

I really liked Bee‘s play on Wenger’s model of three interrelated components; domain, community and practice.

… to define all other types of community, just change the 3rd component.

a) domain + community + interest = community of interest
b) domain + community + learning = community of learning
c) domain + community + practice = community of practice

In this model community is not a function of the content (domain) or the outcome (practice, interest, learning), which also implicitly means that community is the personal; the interaction; the binding element.

It was Greg’s illuminating post that hit the nail on the head for me:

“while all communities are networks, groups and teams, not all networks, groups and teams are communities. In the same manner that while all teams are groups and networks, not all networks and groups are teams. And while all groups are networks, not all networks are groups.”

No offence intended, but this paragraph reminds me of the poetry of Donald Rumfeld: see ‘The Unknown‘. It’s difficult to grasp, but what he says makes perfect sense to me. Thankfully, he’s also included a diagram.

This morning, I had some further thoughts and a bit of an ‘Aha!’ moment, which has helped cement my thinking on this topic. This thought was related to the traditional distinction made between the activities necessary for groups to effectively operate – group tasks — what the group was set up to do — and maintenance — keeping the group going in order to do it.

I have not been able to trace the origins of this work around task–maintenance, but the following samples are adapted from “Resource Manual for a Living Revolution”, New Society Publishers, 1985.

Task Activities: those activities that assist to achieve it purpose and goals.

• providing direction towards goals
• initiating ideas and tasks
• information collecting and sharing
• consultation
• clarifying and summarising
• co-ordinating
• time management
• practical issues and logistics

Maintenance functions: those activities and behaviours which are needed to build a group and keep it going:

• creating and maintaining an atmosphere of safety
• encourage participation
• equalising participation
• listening
• relieving tension
• social interaction
• creating group ownership
• valuing and highlighting diversity

It occurred to me that the extent to which maintenance functions are performed (and are performed well) are directly related to the sense of community or cohesiveness of the group.

Often there is a tendency to concentrate on the formal task activities and ignore the maintenance activities. Community builders should pay more attention to the less tangible maintenance functions and behaviours.

Phew, that’s out of the way. I feel like this now provides me with a really good sedge way into looking at the differences between teaching, moderating and facilitating. Looking forward to that–and to the weeks ahead.

I’m taking the Facilitating online communities course offered by the Manukau Institute of Technology and led by Leigh Blackall from Otago Polytechnic. It kicked off earlier this week with an online meeting (via elluminate), and is off to an interesting start.

As part of the course we’re asked to blog our reflections and thoughts, so I figure that I might as well do that here. Apologies to regular readers if you consider this off-topic. For your benefit, and for those specifically wanting to subscribe to these posts, I’ve added category feeds and will tag all course related content as foc08. That way — you get to decide.

Why am I doing it?
Last year I worked on a project to develop an online resource for learning and skills development in knowledge management. It involved setting up a Wiki and working with a small number of contributors to improve the content and encourage wider participation. I learnt a lot. One of the most important things I learnt is the importance of encouraging good practices. I wish I had had more time to cultivate the community and to assist others to learn about using wikis at a deeper level.

I really loved working in the space where technology and collaboration intersect. And whilst my business is currently focussed on face-to-face facilitation, I’d also like to help groups translate their collaboration and knowledge sharing needs into usable technology solutions. This fits nicely with my purpose to discover more human, more productive, and more creative ways for people to work together.

So, this seems a step in the right direction.

What do I hope to get out of it?
Essentially, I want to better understand the role of an online facilitator, and some of the tools and techniques at their disposal for designing and managing healthy group processes.

Although I have a vague, intuitive understanding of what the answers might be, I’m hoping that the course will answer the following questions:

• What are the characteristics of good online faciliation? Do these differ from face-to-face? If so, how?
• How do group dynamics differ online? If so, how?
• What collaborative frameworks and processes work when facilitating online groups?
• How does is power, rank perceived online and how do you encourage diversity
• What is the role of facilitator in relation to technology stewardship?

Beyond the more specific, task-oriented objectives, I’m also hoping to have some fun, to be present and engaged. I want to meet new people, make new friends, to take more risks and to stretch myself.

Questions and concerns
My main concern is about being overwhelmed by the volume of information and being able to ‘keep up’. I find it difficult to follow threaded conversations online — I guess because of the asynchronous nature of the discussion. Apologies for the stereotyping, but I also put this down to being a mere male. Apparently we find it difficult to concentrate on more than one thing at a time! To be honest, it’s more to do with my learning style. I’m not particularly quick off the mark articulating my thoughts. I need time to ponder and to process. This is not really afforded in the fast-paced environment of the Interwebs.

I’m also very inquisitive, and as a learner, I need to explore and delve deeper. The challenge here is to try and not chase the rabbit too far down the hole!

Week one has been interesting. Mostly I’ve been setting up a feed and reading other participants blogs. I’m looking forward to delving a bit deeper.