Chris Woodhouse's FOC 09 Blog

chriswoodhouse — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 16:02:34 +0000

@fb. @tt Some sort of conflict with Eset’s firewall. Skype works but Chrome & IE8 don’t. Investigation started.

Pub Quiz questions

chriswoodhouse — Thu, 03 Sep 2009 19:20:18 +0000

Foolishly, in last week’s meeting (midday Fri 28th Aug NZST; 1am UK time), I mentioned I’d won the pub quiz earlier that evening and I agreed to post the questions for this week’s quiz. In my village pub, you win 8 pints plus the honour (?) of setting the following week’s quiz. You’ll be glad to hear the beer award is actually in the form of tokens (phew), so I’ll be spending some of those this evening. In the meantime, here are the questions:
Q1) How many teeth does a mature sheep have?
Q2) Last week, Deveron Perfection was sold for a new UK record for a ram. How much did it fetch? £201,000, £231,000 or £261,000?
Q3) How many bags of wool did Baa Baa have?
Q4) “All we like sheep” is sung in which famous piece of music?
Q5) He first appeared alongside Wallace and Gromit in “A Close Shave” and now has his own CBBC TV show. Who is he?
Q6) What is the meat of a sheep that’s at least two years old called?
Q7) In New Zealand in 2003 there were more than 10 sheep for every person. True or False?
Q8) Which of these is a breed of sheep? Charollais; Hereford; Limousin
Q9) Which of these cities is the furthest North? Madrid; New York; Rome?
Q10) Which of these cities is the furthest west? Bristol; Chester; Edinburgh?
Q11) Which capital city is the furthest south?
Q12) Which English county has the easternmost point in Britian?
Q13) In which county is Winchester?
Q14) What is a tsunami?
Q15) What is the lightest weight category in boxing? And it’s not flyweight.
Q16) Which actress was married to John Thaw?
Q17) Which male tennis player is currently ranked 2 in the world?
Q18) Who’s returning to EastEnders tomorrow? (I’ll accept character or actress name.)
Q19) The last UK census was in 2001. In what year will the next one take place?
Q20) How many fluid ounces are there in an American pint?
Q21) In TV, what does HD stand for?
Q22) Which number plates started being used from Tuesday of this week?
Q23) What prison sentence was given to American fraudster Bernie Madoff in June this year? 50 years; 100 years; 150 years?
Q24) What was the surname of the 6 famous 20th century sisters, one of whom married Andrew, 11th Duke of Devonshire?
Q25) Who died last week, had a funeral mass in Boston, was buried in Arlington, and survived two brothers by 40 years?
Q26) In which Australian soap is Lily Allen playing a cameo role?
Q27) In which month does [the UK] Parliament return from its summer recess? September; October; November?
Q28) Who is MP for West Derbyshire? For bonus point, what post does he hold in the Conservative Party?
Q29) Who manufactures the world’s largest passenger airliner?
Q30) What happened 70 years ago today?
Tie Breaker) When pupils go back to Monyash school next Tuesday, how many will there be on the school roll?

Good luck!

FOC09 – Facilitating, Moderating or Teaching?

chriswoodhouse — Wed, 26 Aug 2009 23:25:08 +0000

A Facilitator is like a catalyst in chemistry – something that changes the rate of a reaction or causes a reaction without itself being changed. (See dictionary.com or Wikipedia references.)
The Wikipedia definition for a Facilitator says s/he “enables”, “contributes structure and process”, “supports everyone to do their best thinking” and is “content neutral”. Indeed, when I facilitate workshops, I sometimes describe myself as a “content-free zone”. In a meeting, a Facilitator will set or restate (if they already exist) the rules for how the meeting will progress or function. A Facilitator’s behaviour will usually be reactive and reflective. S/he will ensure everyone gets the chance to speak. If the conversation starts to go “off topic”, the Facilitator will ask if this is where the group wants to go rather than cutting off the diversion.
Wikipedia makes the distinction between Business and Training Facilitators. The latter is more focussed on learning. S/he will determine the existing levels of knowledge of members of the group and build on it – but by encouraging self-directed learning.

A Moderator is mostly used in the context of an online group. S/he is someone who will monitor postings and responses in a forum. Wikipedia says a Moderator is granted access in a forum for the purpose of “moderating discussion”, which it quickly compares to Arbitration before the reader decides that on the face of it “moderating discussion” does little to advance one’s understanding of a Moderator. The Moderator keeps discussions on topic, cleans up entries, neutralises spam, spambots etc and responds to users’ concerns and questions. S/he can ban users for contravention of the rules of the forum. The Moderator’s behaviour will be proactive as well as reactive. Wikipedia suggests the Moderator will often be a friend of the owner of the forum or website. My own experience shows that Moderators can also be volunteers. One of my local FreeCycle forums recently sent out a mailshot asking for additional moderators. Wikipedia does not make any comment on Moderators contributing ordinary postings to forums. I think this would be perfectly allowable, but would need to be recognised by the rules of the particular forum. It may be preferable to have more than one Moderator so each can moderate the other’s postings. This may also help with workload and responsiveness, especially with forums where postings have to be vetted before publication.

A Teacher is someone who educates others. Wikipedia asserts that this is a formal role, usually in a profession with qualifications – especially in schools, colleges and universities. The Teacher will be a subject matter expert, at least in relation to the knowledge levels of her/his class. S/he imparts knowledge, though s/he may also signpost resources for her/his students. A Teacher will enforce rules, which will include rules of the educational establishment as well as rules for her/his particular class. In behavioural terms, the Teacher will be a figure of authority. S/he will be proactive, she will intervene and will often lead.

The assignment asks us who we think the facilitator is in a picture from a meeting taking place in Khammouane Province of Laos, March 2006, as part of the Lao Extension Approach. The meeting is being held in village temple, and the participants are farmers. I’m not sure I can identify a facilitator. The man standing in front of the whiteboards could be a facilitator, but his position and stance (everyone else is seated) give him authority. He may have too much influence and power to be a facilitator.

We were asked to consider three questions about the possible conflict between the roles of Facilitator, Moderator and Teacher.
* I think a Teacher could undermine a Facilitator by explaining a subject or answering a question, when the Facilitator would want another member of the group to respond or explore the issue.
* A Moderator could undermine a Facilitator by rejecting or removing a post as off topic, when the Facilitator would check if the group wanted to follow this new direction, perhaps to find out if it could extend their subject area.
* A Facilitator could undermine a Teacher or a Moderator by allowing a group more freedom than the other two would consider appropriate. And of course, the reverse of my previous two scenarios would reverse the direction of undermining.

Some of the reading material is slanted towards online learning, rather than just any old community. That made me think about what roles would be needed. I think such a group could function with a Teacher or a Facilitator, though the experience would obviously be significantly different. I don’t think such a group could progress with solely a Moderator.

I’ve also posted a comment on Leigh’s post highlighted in the assignment.

What is an online community?

chriswoodhouse — Fri, 14 Aug 2009 22:12:47 +0000

Summary of sources
“Building Online Communities” describes a community as having rules. Someone who wants to start or run a community needs to apply these rules consistently – though they may choose to appeal to the community when considering imposing a sanction. It suggests being open about rules. Some community members will seek to test the rules and push boundaries, so there is little to be gained in having hidden rules – and it will probably be counterproductive. The article also discusses barriers to entry. For example, should you insist on an email address to “sign up” or should you allow anonymous accounts. The former should help reduce if not eliminate many dormant accounts or spamming accounts, but the latter may encourage more contributions. Interestingly, all the interactions described are asynchronous.

“This, That and the Other” starts with a discussion about how technology offers, or at least can envisage, a way to overcome the problems it sees with Dunbar’s Number. It refers the reader to a Wikipedia article which, in paraphrase, states that Dunbar’s Number is a theoretical limit to the number of people with whom an individual can maintain stable social relationships. These are relationships in which an individual knows who each person is and how each person relates to every other person. No precise value for Dunbar’s number has been proposed, though 150 is often cited as an approximation.

The envisaged technological solution to the problem of Dunbar’s limited is the “social contextualizer” – an hypothetical prosthesis that stores the details of social interactions – an analogue of Google for search.
The article moves into “hyperconnectivity” and onto crowdsourcing. These points all lead to a discussion of crowds vs community, with the former being characterised as unthinking collections of individual, displaying mob behaviour while in the latter people have shared or joint interests.
I personally find it hard to imagine the social contextualizer in the near future. This is not a technological objection. I cannot envisage our current social and psychological characteristics being able to cope, even with the technological support the article describes. I also feel the article descends into a bit of an anarchist’s rant until it starts to talk about crowd vs community.

In “Groups and Networks”, the Stephen Downes video from 2006, we are given a thoughtful analysis of the difference of two different collections of e-learning people – a “group” and a “network”. Groups are characterised as strongly co-ordinated, closed and with a boundary. Information is broadcast, going from authoritative sources to receivers. The media used support this paradigm – e.g. TV, passive podcasts and vodcasts. The content is static. When Downes said “closed”, I was reminded of the mathematical construct called a group, one of whose axioms is “closure” whereby the product of two members of a group must also be a member of the group.
A network shows diversity with autonomous members. Contributions are open. There are no walls, rather there are bridges. Information flow is based on connections, often person to person. Media used will include telephone calls, personal email, blogs etc.

Networks vs Communities
In the course meeting held 9am Mon 10th August NZST, we started to discuss the difference between a network and a community. At that time, I wondered (out loud!) that I’d be worried if we spent too much time debating the academic niceties, making the analogy to mediaeval theologists arguing about the number of angels on the head of a pin. Having thought some more, and in reading and watching the references for this assignment, I have changed my mind. I think we at least need to agree vocabulary. It may be that we decide any online collection of individuals who collaborate in some way might benefit from some sort of moderation, leading, teaching or facilitating. Understanding the nature of that collection of individuals and how they interact will help us decide whether or not it’s appropriate for us to “facilitate”, and what sort of interventions we will need to use.

So what do I think characterises an online community?
First of all, I would adopt a wide definition of community. I happily include Downes’ Groups and Networks.
I take Dunbar’s number and the associated thinking from “This, That and the Other”. If a small enough community (is this a tautology?) already exists and goes online, then I think it will self manage because the social relationships between members of the community are stable and all individuals understand them. If the community becomes large, i.e. its size exceeds Dunbar’s number, or if it forms for a new purpose, then rules will be needed specifically for this community.
I also think there is a chicken and egg situation for a (type of) community and technology that supports it being online. Some online communities might not exist if the technology did not exist to support them. While I don’t have particular examples, it strikes me as being closely related to user requirements for an ICT system being informed by what’s technically possible.
We also need to consider the nature of the communication between individuals in an online community. While a lot of communities will communicate both synchronously (e.g. telephone, web conference or online meeting, instant messenger) and asynchronously (e.g. email, blogs, bulletin board) it is quite feasible for a community to use only one of these modes. This may be by choice (e.g. the nature of the interactions linked to the goals of that community may dictate) or be forced (e.g. line speeds are slow so synchronous interaction is technically excluded).
In summary, the attributes I would look for in an online community are:
* A good proportion of interactions between individuals in the community happen online – but this can be synchronous or asynchronous or both
* There are some shared goals
* There are rules about membership and behaviour – though these may be inherited or implicit depending on the age of the community

Group Spaces

chriswoodhouse — Sun, 09 Aug 2009 10:28:59 +0000

As well as considering what platforms to use for the mini-conference and how to share ideas about them, I think it’s also worth exploring other types of collaborative resources. Indeed, I think there’s a case for saying we should really look for as many examples as possible, becaue it is precisely the use of these tools that could be one of defining or identifying a particular online community.

One such resource is GroupSpaces, where I’ve created a group called FOC09. I thought it might be worth trying this out for collaborative working for things that might not belong in the course wiki. There’s also a calendar feature. I’ve added a link to the Pageflakes page I created last week.

GroupSpaces supports multiple “managers”, so I’d like to make all participants on the course managers. I’ve sent invitations to a few of you – those where I’ve got your email address. Either you’ve explicitly swapped email addresses with me, or you’ve commented on my blog and I’ve (shamelessly) lifted your email address from the notification I received when you posted.

So, if you’d like to have a look, or, better still, use this GroupSpaces group, please let me know and I’ll add you.

FOC09 – meeting types

chriswoodhouse — Mon, 03 Aug 2009 20:38:02 +0000

In the second (and successful) introductory meeting, we touched briefly on one of our futue assignments – to facilitate an online event. Having suggested we have a list of types of meeting, I offered (I seem to have the volunteering habit at the moment) to put up such a list on the course Wiki so we could pick them off. I suppose it might be a bit of a sign-up sheet.

I have to admit to being quite a newbie in editing Wikis. I was happy enough addding my name with a link to my blog on the Participants page. Having gone back to the Wiki to start something for meeting types, I think I could do with a bit of guidance. In design terms, I would suggest a new page. I certainly wouldn’t want to mess with the layout and content of the main page. There could be a completely new page, with some prosaic title like “Meeting types for online events); or we could have something in the Course mini-conference page, pointed to from the Assignment 2 section on the main page.

So, first of all, a question for the group. Please post a comment with your thoughts.

What do you think is the best place for the list of meeting types for our Assignment 2 events?

And while I’ve got you answering a question, how about your thoughts on the content. I was thinking of a simple table, which anyone can extend, of course. I’m not precious about this creation – otherwise why put it in a Wiki?! So the table might look like:

x Meeting type x Participants using this for their online event x

x Elluminate x aaaaa x

x DimDim x bbbbbb, cccccc x

x Mikogo x dddddd x

x Second Life x eeeeee, fffffff, gggggg x

…

Next, a plea for help. If we end up with a new page, I haven’t done anything like that in a Wiki. As above, all I’ve done in my (brief) Wiki life is edit existing pages. Please can someone guide me through how to create new pages and create links to them? Or, alternatively, point me to a good resource to teach me?

Lastly, while you’re here, please feel free to list any types of online meeting you would like to be in the list. Of course, there’ll be time to edit the Wiki page once it’s up and running, but while I have your attention

In the second (and successful) introductory meeting, we touched briefly on one of our future assignments – to facilitate an online event. Having suggested we have a list of types of meeting, I offered (I seem to have the volunteering habit at the moment) to put up such a list on the course Wiki so we could pick them off. I suppose it might be a bit of a sign-up sheet.

I have to admit to being quite a newbie in editing Wikis. I was happy enough addding my name with a link to my blog on the Participants page. Having gone back to the Wiki to start something for meeting types, I think I could do with a bit of guidance. In design terms, I would suggest a new page. I certainly wouldn’t want to mess with the layout and content of the main page. There could be a completely new page, with some prosaic title like “Meeting types for online events”; or we could have something in the Course mini-conference page, pointed to from the Assignment 2 section on the main page.

So, first of all, a question for the group. Please post a comment with your thoughts.

What do you think is the best place for the list of meeting types for our Assignment 2 events?

x Meeting type x Participants using this for their online event x

x Elluminate x aaaaa x

x DimDim x bbbbbb, cccccc x

x Mikogo x dddddd x

x Second Life x eeeeee, fffffff, gggggg x

…

FOC09 – Pagecast created

chriswoodhouse — Sun, 02 Aug 2009 22:22:39 +0000

I’ve created a Pageflakes account and crafted a Pagecast of all the blogs I could get feeds for from the participant list (http://en.wikiversity.org/wiki/Facilitating_Online/Participants) at just gone midnight BST on Monday 3rd August, or 11:10 NZST Mon 3-Aug-09, in an amateurish attempt to answer Sarah’s challenge to emulate Mike Bogle on last year’s course. The Pagecast is here

http://www.pageflakes.com/foc09/

How did I do, Sarah?

Three blogs were not straightforward:
Adrien – I got permission denied when I tried to look at your blog.
Elaine - I couldn’t find a feed link on your blog page at mqspace (nice brand, btw) so I took the liberty of putting a placeholder “flake” with the URL of your blog page. If you can find out a feed URL, let me know.
Sarah - your RSS link points to the course blog, so as I’ve already got that link in the introductory “flake”, I haven’t replicated it in a separate “flake”. It’s no problem to do so if you’d like your own

Last but by no means least, I’ve put up a world clock. Let me know if your timezone is missing. If I have got your timezone, but got the city wrong, please let me know. I’m trying to keep it to one city per timezone per country – so please bear with me with my choice of NZ city! Maybe you should cut cards

FOC09 (Facilitating Online 2009) – introductory post

chriswoodhouse — Thu, 30 Jul 2009 20:59:21 +0000

I’ve been a facilitator for about 10 years and set up on my own after leaving Royal Mail in June 2008. I have used online meetings for 2-3 years and I facilitate 3-4 meetings/month for a client. I am always looking for chances to develop and learn, and this course leapt out of one of my Google Alerts this week.

I’m interested in sharing experience, connecting with other facilitators, trying out new ideas in a “safe” environment, learning new skills and techniques, systematising the knowledge I already have and broadening my use of technology.

I like the prospect of having to choose subjects for a meeting. Well actually it feels a bit scary as my client schedules subjects for online meetings then we agree the fine detail of the agenda based on delegate input. But I’d like to get out of my comfort zone.

I have a second string to my bow. I’ve been commissioned to write a short course (i.e. 1 day) on IT for small businesses / start-ups. I’m retaining the IP, so something like this course keeps me up to date with how IT is being used, and gives me an opportunity to develop the skills to write a variant of the course to bve delivered online.