Week 1 Notes - FDO: The Big Picture

Depending on your group, your co-facilitator, and your own preferences, you may have more or fewer live web conferencing sessions throughout FLO. You and/or your co-facilitator partner should be comfortable in the moderator role in the web conferencing tool you select. (We use Blackboard Collaborate, but it could be any equivalent tool, like Adobe Connect, etc). 

Sometimes you encounter a group that has little experience but special interest in learning how to moderate live/synchronous sessions (you might glean this from their pre-course survey responses, or their intro posts). If this shows up, discuss with your co-facilitation partner whether you want to work in some "moderator training" for synchronous sessions. It could be a worthwhile "add", because it would enable participants to explore the "mixed mode" combination of synchronous and asynchronous online facilitation in their mini-sessions.

At minimum, we recommend a live session in week 1 to check in, clarify any questions and start building your course community by getting to know each other a little. We have found some groups really love it, and others either aren't as drawn to it, or find the business of scheduling live sessions impossible. We always record the sessions, and share the recordings.

Web Conferencing: The Least You Need to Know...

• how to create, and upload or display, presentation slides
• how to help participants troubleshoot their audio, run the audio setup wizard
• how to function comfortably in the "moderator" role