My Photo on Schmap

Another one of my photos has been included in the newly released fifth edition of the Schmap Hobart Guide. It’s a picture of Eaglehawk Neck taken from the nearby lookout on our trip to Tasmania in Nov-2006. The original photo is on my flickr page. The other photo included is Adventure Bay.

I really get a kick out of seeing my photos included in stuff like this and the feeling that I’m contributing ‘value’ by being a producer rather than just a ‘consumer’ online.

My photos are released under a Creative Commons license, so people are free to use them with attribution.

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Podcast on the Productivity Show

It’s been a while coming, but the podcast I recorded with Tony way back in June is finally up!

In this episode, regular host of the Productivity Show Tony Goodson is in the hot seat!  This was my first attempt on this side of the mic.  Despite a nervous start where I sound like I’m on speed and a few mixed metaphors towards the end, I’m quite pleased with it – and really enjoyed doing it.

Download here.  Show notes here.

Enjoy.

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Google Chrome Comic

There’s been a fair bit of hype about the release of Chrome – Google’s new open source web browser. Yet another browser is of little interest (or use) to me, but have you seen the comic book introducing how the browser works’?

The famous Scott McCloud — who I’ve talked about before — created the comics adaptation. This is so awesome! I just love it.

Go see for yourself.

[ 0 comments ] [permalink] [ creativity - open source ]

Facilitating, moderating, or teaching?

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.

[ 6 comments ] [permalink] [ facilitation - foc08 ]

Informal Learning

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.

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