Thanks everyone!

Thanks everyone!

by Sylvia Currie -
Number of replies: 0
As always, the annual reflections and next steps discussion has been very valuable. Thanks so much everyone for your feedback and suggestions. Over the past 10 days we've seen:
  • 15 participants
  • 25 suggestions for seminar topics
  • 6 things we should consider with respect to format
  • 2 ideas for improving the user experience
  • 3 needs identified for promoting SCoPE
  • Lots of words of appreciation, which is really appreciated! approve
I've been combing through your contributions regularly, and have attempted to organize them in a way that will hopefully be helpful to everyone.

On the topic of busy professionals, Christine put out a plea for seminar summaries. This is something that has come up in the past, and we've certainly done a better job in some seminars than in others! I think we always start out with good intentions, but it's difficult to keep up the momentum. I believe that an ongoing summary is far more useful than a summary completed at the end of the seminar.

So for this seminar I decided to create a Reflections and Next Steps 2009 wiki with very basic information, and to invest my energy in regularly tagging contributions as a way that provides an ongoing summary. It's been a very useful exercise as a facilitator. It's such an easy way to pull out the main questions and themes. Also, by sorting the contributions in different ways and re-reading contributions, new things surface. And, of course, the real benefit of tagging is that it can distribute the workload of creating summaries. As Christine says "Unfortunately, my suggestion makes work for someone". So maybe we can make it a little bit of work for everyone. :-) I hope to encourage tagging in upcoming seminars as a way to create those ongoing summaries.

Bonnie's sign off yesterday
Thanks for the opportunity to participate!
captures what I really appreciate about SCoPE.
  1. "Thanks" is directed at ALL members
  2. Participation is an opportunity open to everyone
  3. People can choose how they wish to participate
So thanks again everyone! The next BIG step, of course, is to implement some of your ideas! approve Thankfully, you all make that job very easy.

The next SCoPE seminar, The Art of Teaching, begins on Monday, October 19th. This seminar combines asynchronous discussion with a series of 3 web conferences (one each Monday -- check the times!) to view and discuss the Art of Teaching video. We also plan to schedule a course showcase in the final week that illustrates the key elements of the video.

See you there, and, as always, spread the word!