Derek Chirnside

Throught-lets on the effect on participants:

• More power to participants/members/"the facilitated"
• More distributed identities of same
• Challenges to perception of identity
  
• more channels of communication
  

Has implications for facilitation . . .

Maggie - I've now trawled down this thread a little and see you have posted some more details.  This is a little side comment . . .

In about three weeks we are starting an online workshop/event to look at leadership in a distributed community with this literacy group.
One of the things I am interested in is some field trips.  I have this naive view that some modeling and visits can help move along the idea that 'reflective' habits have value, stories are fun and nurturing etc.
In about 5-8 weeks I'd be interested in visiting somewhere in the world of teacher professional communities with a few of these teachers.

Maybe this could work for your group?  Online cross discipline pollination??

Hmm, Maggie, interesting question.
Sorry to be so long in replying, I've been away, and internet challenged.

I've had a quick look at your other posts, and have some idea where you are at - but I could not decide if this was a formal professional development project - or an informal volentary one; or if it was paid release time or not - or if it was linked to appraisal - or if it was a volentary opt-in deal.  All these factors are relevant.  I now have some serious involvement with a literacy teachers community-wanna-be.  We have the question "Do we have the glue and the oomph to actually form a community?"  I've spent part of a day each with three groups totalling 80 or so leaders of the project where the community may form from.  I learned a lot, some of which I already knew . . .

Several indicated they felt insecure online.  In 2 workshops I had a request for an anonymous option, to be able to ask questions with no names attached.  Others indicated as lack of time.  Several indicated technology insecurities.  But by far the biggest factor were

• Why should I go online when I can pick up the phone.
• "What I have to say is of no value".

This is a long way of saying there are lots of things to work with in the situation you - and then you put in the public nature of blogs and it may get worse.  :-)
Robin has suggested 'private blogging'.  And I will put aside the question of whether private blogging is blogging etc etc, this is a question for another forums) . . .


Here are three factors Robin lists . . .

1. past the fear of technology
2. privacy of thoughts
3. or even judgments from peers

These are right on.  IMO.  I'd add (in your case) a

    4. any sense of value of reflection
    5. a process to engage in it. 

We used an article

Teacher talk to improve teaching practices
Brian Annan, Mei Kuin Lai, and Viviane Robinson

Teachers engaging in "learning talk" analyse, critique, and challenge their current teaching practices to find and/or create more effective ways of teaching. Using three New Zealand studies, this article examines the effectiveness of "learning talk" in facilitating changes in teacher practices and beliefs, and in student achievement. It addresses the challenges to this kind of talk, and explains the role of expert support in facilitating it.
http://www.nzcer.org.nz/default.php?cPath=139_134_38&products_id=423
(I apologise that it is only available on payment . . .  I will see if I can have permission to post a copy)

I was quite interested in this.  Brian Annan had been there the week before, and in our little travelling roadshow, Mei was on of the participants. Talking to some teachers, this process was helpful.  But the huge barriers remain.

Principally it is the second bullet point above.  The perception of value.  [I will not dwell on the other thing that is killing off reflective practice: linking it in a draconian way to appraisal.]  But that is another story.  And I could also muse a little here on why some people take to this like a duck to water, and just do NOT look back.  There is a research question there . . .  or something for the story thread.

This post doesn't really 'answer' your question Maggie, it just talks around it. It is also tangential to the question of learning facilitation.  But the role of the facilitator (mentor, guide, coach) seems to be vital.  (Let me know if you'd like some links to other research in this field).  How to help nurture more people into this role? - Derek
Heading into three days of e-mails to deal with.

I had something to say, but did not know exactly where it should go.

Today I sat in in a session on Reflective practice for teachers.  This could help online facilitation learning.  Some sort of cycle.  Maybe reflection > action > observe/reflect on outcome > adjust/learn > . . . .

Easy to say.  :-)

Nick, this is an interesting activity, the looking back and "Where are we now?"
I am reminded of a small comment by Etienne Wenger at the end of a long day's workshop on Communities of practice.  (Paraphrase) "Our understanding is just in it's infancy, like our thinking was in the 70's on groups, that has matured much more into our understanding of groups today".  He went on to say something about our understanding (of CoP's) will grow and will deepen in the future.

I read last night Nancy's document referred to in this post:

This is quite a remarkable summary/overview, and has some good avenues to inquire down further.  It starts with the sentence "Traditional face-to-face (F2F) group facilitation is a well evolved practice"

I wonder in a few years me what we will say about online facilitation??  I'd say we, the collective we have learned a huge amount this century.  But it has opened up just as many new doors, especially with new technologies.

My personal history in the online facilitation world is not that long.  e-mail Lists in the 1990's and Forums in the 2000's.

Since 2000, My main role was a course developer in a College of Education with over a thousand distance students and online was the natural way to go.  We set our standard at 56K dialup, and the challenge was to learn to live in this new medium.

Consequently I have spent a lot of time alongside others who were teaching courses in maori, professional studies, special needs, music etc.  At the heart of the institution there has always been the desire to live in learning communities of some sort, after all these are budding professionals we work with and most of the teachers saw the limitations of a lecture driven methodology (or lectures on DVD delivered to distance students) and many have sought to embrace a distributed/online community model.  I have learned a lot through vicarious experience and mistakes.  I've generally tried to do a little more than I should on the platform, understanding, energy and resources we have.
We have actually come a long way, with more to learn.  It's been a lot of fun.  I meet people still who I've interacted with online.

In this context I've run several workshops face-face and online on the topic of facilitation.  I've also been part of several online workshops as well.  [I'm actually now ready for another dose!!]

As I've described in my yesterday's post, I'm now involved with catalysing a potential teachers community out of a soon to end project.

Pretty well everything else has been dabbling.  Clinical health educators, mothers online, short term task groups, planning groups, teachers groups, parents groups, early child care educators, and most recently looking at something for amateur playwrites.  A bit like a butterfly trajectory.

It's been great to read the other stories here.  We have a lot in common, and yet so different.