Facilitating Online




 * Facilitation is a rare and valuable skill to have. It is a service that is often used in conferences, debates, panels and tutorials, or simply where groups of people are meeting and need someone to help negotiate meaning and understanding, and to keep everyone engaged and on task.
 * Good facilitation depends on good communication skills. 
 * Good online facilitation depends on good online communication skills. 

This course is designed to help people to access and interpret models, research, and develop professional expertise in online facilitation. The course is aimed at:


 * teachers who want to know how to facilitate online learning,
 * non-profits who want to know how to facilitate online networks and and communities, events and campaigns,
 * businesses who want to know how to leverage online communication tools for meetings, conferences, seminars and workshops.

Objectives

 * Define an online community
 * Define facilitation
 * Develop facilitation skills
 * Apply facilitation skills within an online learning community
 * Evaluate the facilitation of an online learning community

Projects


There are 3 projects designed to ensure you study the material, communicate with others and have the opportunity to put into practice what you learn. These projects are what is used for assessment - should you require formal accreditation.


 * 1) /Your course blog/
 * 2) /Facilitate an online event/
 * 3) /Evaluate a facilitated online event/

Topics
Below is a topic schedule for the course. This is constantly a work in progress.


 * 1) /Orientation/
 * 2) /What is an online community?/
 * 3) /Facilitating, moderating, or teaching/
 * 4) /Looking for online community: Discussion forums/
 * 5) /Looking for online community: Blog networks/
 * 6) /Looking for online community: Wiki collaborators/
 * 7) /Looking for online community: Virtual Worlds/
 * 8) /Looking for online community: Social networking platforms/
 * 9) /Reflect on different kinds of online communities/
 * 10) /Facilitate an event for the course mini conference/
 * 11) /Evaluate the facilitation of an online event/
 * 12) /Round up assignments, course review/

Help
Contact the following people for help working through this course:


 * Leighblackall (talk) 10:21, 11 March 2012 (UTC)