I've been busy. Lots of tasks relating to the start of year. Here are some from my micro-blogging twitter posting this week...

• atsc: Just given the task of helping a facilitator apply for a teaching award. Lots of points for him to ponder. What is good online facilitation?

atsc: Who is going to Feb 12 Twestival in Sydney? http://twestival.com/

atsc: Getting into the guts of a ppt presentation. Trying to nicely explain how the change in LMS systems will affect time poor facilitators. hmmm

atsc: Dreaming of ice skating on Sunday as temperatures in West Sydney hit 44 degrees C (111F). Hope new skates fit it will be the only cool place

• atsc: Looking for definitive books about web 2 in education (how to) and online learning activities. Suggestions?
• atsc: Wondering why the tools and activities in LMS systems are so poorly constructed to support discussion and learning from discussion...
• atsc: Procrastinating over putting together the program wide course evaluations into one useable summary.
• atsc: Anyone use LAMS within Moodle? Is there any advantage?
• atsc: Looking at moodle and scratching my head. Why is this better than other LMS systems? Seems poorly structured... Comments?
• atsc: Wondering how many of our university staff now use twitter but don't know who else uses it internally...
• atsc: Thinking we should have recommended twitter for our blogging/wiki group as a means to work together, stay in touch and communicate quickly.
• atsc: Ppts for facilitators workshop - How do I tell them nicely they need to work harder & include more activities. Learning is important!
• atsc: Ppts for facilitators workshop - How do I tell them nicely they need to work harder & include more activities. Learning is important!
• atsc: Seriously thinking about promoting twitter to faculty as a way to do reflection on teaching and research as well as prof. related networking
• atsc: Seriously worrying about the loss of our structured activity/forum system. LMS systems don't do it. Web 2 stuff doesn't do it. Oh dear...
• atsc: Still looking for tutors for an elearning course aimed at yr 7-12 pre-service teachers. Any takers? It's a blast teaching it - Uni in Sydney
• atsc: About to attend an educational development meeting and meet new staff working within the faculty in this area.

I've been struggling to put into words what I personally believe facilitation is and what makes a good facilitator. I've finally found a good definition which resonates with my internal feelings of why I was successful at teaching in a blended course recently. Via the wikipedia entry for "experiential learning":

An experiential facilitator is one who is passionate about his/her work and is able to immerse participants totally in the experience, allowing them to learn from their peers and the learning atmosphere created. These facilitators stimulate the imagination, keeping participants hooked on the experience.

And:

An excellent facilitator believes in the creed, "You teach some by what you say, teach more by what you do, but most of all, you teach most by who you are."

Now off to read some more...

I have created a new concept map about online teaching so I can make sense of the discussion going on in the Facilitating course about Facilitation versus teaching. I strongly believe facilitation is only 1 small part of teaching (whether teaching is online or face to face). I think my mind map proves this. See: http://www.mindmeister.com/maps/show_public/9155880
It is still a work in progress. If you would like to be involved in its development drop me a line or make a comment here...

Over the last few weeks I have been involved in both a course about
online communities and also involved in the ongoing New South Wales wide
project "EnRoLE" about role-playing and simulation (which inherently
involve community), as well as a within department look at communities
of practice and how they influence what we do within our "Learning and
Teaching" department.

To be honest all these viewpoints had me *very* perplexed so I decided
to put a few minutes into creating a mind map about "community" to make
sense of the landscape. This can be viewed here:

http://www.mindmeister.com/maps/show_public/9150136

I'm not sure if it useful for others (as it is my personal
conceptualization) - one of the issues with mind-mapping when it is not
done as a group activity.

Hopefully the blogosphere may find it useful...

I'm presently having a great deal of fun exploring communities of
practice and experiential learning...

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Andrew Chambers