Educational Technology and Change Journal

By Jim Shimabukuro
Editor

(Note: This is the first of two reports on the iFacilitate 2012 online workshop. I participated as a student and opted for the certificate option to make sure that I stayed the course. I created a temporary blog for the coursework, and the excerpts below link to posts in that blog. Click here to see the second report. -js)

In early February, when I found an invitation from Greg Walker, Leeward Community College (University of Hawaii System) Distance Education Coordinator, in my emailbox, I decided to go for it. Some of my ETCJ colleagues have written about their MOOCing experiences, and I wanted to see, firsthand, what it was like. In the following weeks, I’ll be sharing some observations and comments that I’m posting in my workshop blog.

The invitation was for a five-week online faculty workshop, iFacilitate:

Aloha mai e. Are you an adventurous “life long learner” who is interested in experiencing the future of online learning? iFacilitate is …. FREE and open. It does not consist of a body of content you are supposed to remember. Rather, the learning in the course results from the activities you undertake, and will be different for each person. In addition, this course is …. distributed across the web….Your active participation in this workshop will help you to acquire the skills needed to function in this type of course. iFacilitate is a 5 week open workshop [beginning 2.27.12] that introduces a variety of facilitation skills to help participants engage learners across a range of conversational spaces, including online discussion forums, web conferencing rooms, and wikis and blogs. This workshop explores building online learning communities and communities of practice …. Online learning communities develop through interaction among participants. Participation is open to everyone …. Your level of participation is up to you. [One of the options is a letter of completion.]

My First ‘Week 1 Online Learning Communities’ Post

Feb. 27 – I haven’t done the readings yet, but here are some preliminary thoughts and concerns. I’ve found that both a challenge and an advantage is the openness of online learning communities. In other words, as a teacher, I can’t and shouldn’t want to control the networks that students naturally create with classmates — individually and in small groups — as well as with me and course spaces I’ve created. In the students’ personal  [click here to read the rest of the post]

Response to ‘Key Elements of Building Online Community: Comparing Faculty and Student Perceptions’

Feb. 28 –  I have a few concerns about Pam Vesely, Lisa Bloom, and John Sherlock’s “Key Elements of Building Online Community: Comparing Faculty and Student Perceptions” (MERLOT Journal of Online Learning and Teaching, 3.3, Sep. 2007). My primary concern is with the authors’ use of the term “modeling community.”  [click here to read the rest of the post]

Response to ‘MOOCs: Massive Open Online Courses or Massive and Often Obtuse Courses?’

Mar. 1 –  In “MOOCs: Massive Open Online Courses or Massive and Often Obtuse Courses?” (eLearn, Aug. 2011), Lisa Chamberlin and Tracy Parish provide “a participant’s point of view of MOOCs” in the form of pros and cons. It’s a useful introduction to workshops such as iFacilitate because it prepares us for some of the issues that we’re going to face. From a reader’s perspective, what interests me most is not so much the authors’ views but the  [click here to read the rest of the post]

Response to ‘Rethinking Education’

Mar. 1 – Updated 3.2.12 at 7:30am: OK, finally got to watch Michael Wesch’s video, uploaded to YouTube on 1.24.11. (In the text below, I’ve added transcripts of some of the audio, but I did them quickly so they may not be accurate.) I think the main point is captured toward the end, in this statement:  [click here to read the rest of the post]

Replies for Fate and Brent on 3.1.12

Mar. 1 – I had no problems posting comments on Rachael’s “Motivation to Learn” (3.1.12) and Pete’s “How often do students check their email?” (3.1.12), but I had difficulty with Fate’s “Ah, one mo’ time, please” (2.29.12) and Brent’s “An Abbreviated Laulima Orientation Video” (3.1.12).  [click here to read the rest of the post]

Comment on Downes’s ‘Knowledge, Learning and Community’

Mar. 2 – Stephen Downes, in “Knowledge, Learning and Community” (change.mooc.ca, 2.27.12), defines individual knowledge as a product of interaction “with the world,” and the world includes the natural and artificial, concrete and abstract, as well as the organic and inorganic, and he describes it as “the state of organization … in our brains and bodies.” To acquire knowledge via interaction, or to learn, “is to emulate an entire organizational  [click here to read the rest of the post]

Responses to iFacilitate Week 2 Discussion Questions

Mar. 7 – Describe your best teacher and your worst teacher ever.

For me, the “best” teachers are living examples of what they preach. They model the behaviors that they want students to follow. They share with students the ideas that excite and interest them and, in this way, invite students along on their learning journeys. Forrest Gump, in his runs across the country, and Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi are examples. From this perspective, “best teacher” is in the eye of the beholder, making  [click here to read the rest of the post]

Week 2 Mobile Device Exercise – Video

Mar. 7 – This is a 24-second video shot from my iPhone (at ca. 11:30am on 3.7.12) to demo use of a mobile device for iFacilitate 2012. The point is that I can take videos anywhere and anytime, upload them to YouTube, and share them with others in my blog. Implications for students and teachers are enormous. Students could include their own videos in “papers” or multimedia projects published in their own blogs (eportfolios) — just as I’m  [click here to read the rest of the post]

Comment: Week 2 Video – Ken Robinson

Mar. 8 – Robinson begins with the premise that our current model for schooling is broken. Thus, “reform” is like trying to revive a dead horse. What we need is a “revolution.” Change has to occur at a fundamental level. He characterizes the current model as standardized, a one-size-fits-all approach that demands conformity. The alternative is a model that prizes the individual, students as “who they are” declaring that “this is me, my most authentic  [click here to read the rest of the post]

Scott: ‘To Facilitate or to Teach’?

In his iFacilitate blog post “Facilitating online: Why? How?” this morning, Scott says, “I see a debate: to facilitate or to teach.” He asks, “[It] doesn’t have to be so binary, does it?” His point is that both are important, and he makes a great case: “You can be a guide by the side, but you also have to provide leadership. You also have to direct conversation.”  [click here to read the rest of the post]

Jan and Greg: Rhizomes for Breakfast

Mar. 9 – I received a link in my email this morning from Jan, one of our iFacilitate colleagues: “Seeing Rhizomatic Learning and MOOCs Through the Lens of the Cynefin Framework” (3.4.12). Coincidentally, I received similar links from Greg in his comment on one of my posts: Rhizomatic Learning – Why We Teach? (11.5.11) and Rhizomatic Education: Community as Curriculum (6.3.08; originally published in Innovate on 6.2.08). All three are written by Dave Cormier and appear in Dave’s Educational Blog.  [click here to read the rest of the post]

Shawn on Wristwatches, Beepers, and ‘Why on Earth?’

Mar. 10 – Shawn’s comment (3.9.12) on the iFacilitate video of the week featuring Ken Robinson is a reminder of how quickly our world is changing. I’ve never been able to get my son to wear a wristwatch (he’s often late) or even carry a wallet. I remember a few years ago, when our campus, Kapiolani CC, was moving toward a virtual schedule of classes and catalog, I asked him whether he relied on the hardcopy schedules and catalog. He had no idea they  [click here to read the rest of the post]

‘To Facilitate or to Teach’ – A Paradox

Mar. 11 – Leigh Blackall’s article (Learn Online, 10.12.07) on the facilitate vs. teach issue captures all the complexity and confusion in developing a new model for teaching that’s in sync with the social web, and if our own iFacilitate discussions are an indication, the situation hasn’t changed even after five years. The old model was designed for a pre-digital age when space and time constraints made in-person the most cost-effective approach. Today, the internet  [click here to read the rest of the post]

Filed under: Uncategorized |