A couple of questions that emerged during the course were: (1) How can LS operate in international/multinational contexts, and (2) How can LS operate in online/asynchronous contexts.
As my brain tries to untangle what happened this week, it strikes me that one important factor in the success of the LS activities in the course was the immersive experience -- we did a lot of LS thinking/working/production in five days straight -- much more than I've seen done in most online courses.
Reminds me of a facilitation experience I had back in the day as a summer camp counsellor for international youth at Lester B. Pearson College of the Pacific -- which if you don't know it is a small, remote, rural campus on Vancouver Island. The participants arrived as young individuals from all over the world, spanning all social classes (many were there on financial need-based scholarships) and levels of confidence (many came as 'troubled youth') -- via air and then ferry and then van -- to co-exist for two intense months in this intimate, isolated location with only one another for support (we took away their phones and money upon arrival). They came as strangers and left as the closest of friends -- sobbing as they departed because they knew they were going back to their workaday lives with a very low likelihood of coming together again or recreating that experience.
There is an overlap for me between the questions about LS operating in international/multinational contexts and online/asynchronous contexts -- in both cases we are talking about participants (and facilitators) getting their bearings in unfamiliar worlds. This may actually be an advantage when it comes to facilitating LS activities, as people are already broken away from their workaday worlds. If the facilitator is successful in creating an immersive experience -- and I think the effective use of time is one key factor in doing this (I'm thinking about the rigidity of time limits in the sequencing of LS activities) -- then a 'microculture' can be created in these worlds which is conducive to LS work.
All assumptions, I know -- but makes me wonder if this course would have produced the same results had the same activities been conducted over a two-week period.