Sandy Hirtz

A community is like a ship;
everyone ought to be prepared to take the helm.
Henrik Ibsen 1882

I am enjoying the conversations.  My best contribution on a sunny Friday afternoon, is to recommend the Seven Principles for Cultivating Communities of Practice by Etienne Wenger, Richard McDermott, and William M. Snyder

Happy Friday! 

With a clear vision, I believe that longevity of a Community is not an issue.  Communities evolve and it is only natural to have members come and go.  Community members are an interesting breed.  Some lurk, some are active on a daily basis, some are enthusiastic for a short time only, some are dormant for long periods.  But this is also true also of a f2f community and involvement concerns are the same.  If the Community can meet needs and goals, members will remain active.

To be successful an Online Community must have a solid foundation, a vision, a purpose and specific goals.  But most importantly, the community must have a facilitator willing to play a behind the scenes role making connections, nurturing, guiding, supporting and creating opportunities of engaging value.  The facilitator must be a patient sleuth.

This resource can be located at: 
http://hbswk.hbs.edu/tools/print_item.jhtml?id=2855&t=entrepreneurship

Online Course Design, Online Teaching and Online Learning is a cooperative process.  We must ponder the unique skills of the designer, the instructor and the student. How do we meld, mesh, mold all of these into a course that can danced by all stakeholders, like an expertly choreographed Salsa?

The University of Gloucestershire: Centre for Active Learning, has compiled an extensive bibliography of research into Active Learning and Learning Styles and the Scholarship of Teaching.
http://www.glos.ac.uk/ceal/resources/litreview.cfm

I find your posting interesting and significant Heather. I work with many colleagues interested in moving their f2f courses online, but are intimidated. They appreciate that they are lagging behind but find all the techy talk frustrating. Those of us involved in online education for a number of years tend to talk passionately and enthusiastically and inadvertently terrify the newbies.

For this reason, I have organized two live webcasts in the BCcampus Expo Marketplace Community for those teachers interested in easing into online. These live sessions will break the dance steps of the instructional designer into manageable one-step-at-a-time movements .  They are designed to entertain, enlighten, and ease fear and trepidation.

Wednesday Nov 23, 2005 at 11:00am
E-Learning Solutions on a Shoestring: Help for the Chronically Underfunded Trainer
With creativity, quality e-learning CAN be had on a shoestring budget. This presentation will explore cost-cutting strategies for doing it yourself, and keeping up with it all. This will be a fun, fast session meant to encourage and empower those who have felt overwhelmed by developing online content.  Here is a direct link to the live webcast:
https://www.elluminate.com/site/mtg.jnlp?password=1266818224

Thursday,  Nov 24, 2005 at 12:30 PM
Put Your Course Online! - How To's and Tips and Tricks
Join Dr. David Harper for a practical look at online course design. He will demonstrate the ?tricks of the trade? in the linear design of a fourth-year course using WebCT. Some of the issues discussed will include course appearance and navigation, pre-and post-testing, creating a sense of community in the virtual classroom and how to enhance student participation. This Webcast will be the first in a series and is suitable for everyone in all disciplines from novice to expert.  To join the live webcast, click on the following direct link:
https://www.elluminate.com/mtg.jnlp?password=828926604

A posting as promised John!

What an amazing conference.  I recognized John immediately, catching him off guard as he had no idea who I was.  I was most surprised to meet Salvor whom I assumed was a handsome Mexican from her Flicker site and pictures.  It was most confusing and a little disappointing to delete the handsome Mexican from my head.  However, Salvor's enthusiasm, humor and warmth more than made up for my disappointment.

Salvor and I spent an incredible networking lunch with people from all over the world.  At our table were people from Norway, Denmark, Sweden, Switzerland, China, Japan, USA, and South Africa.  Included in the group was myself, of course from Canada and Salvor from Iceland.   Where else can one sit with such an International group and have so much in common.  We got into a fabulous discussion on podcasting which became somewhat heated and captivated our collective attentions long after the rest of the room had cleared out.

It was an amazing experience. It was decided that we must all attend EduCa in Berlin and eLearn 2006 in Hawaii next October.

(How's that John)