Friday, August 14, 2009

Teacher, Facilitator, Moderator

A Teachers Role:
At all levels teachers play a very active role throughout the learning in of the students.

Helping learners to authenticate learning – making links to curriculum learning, interests, existing knowledge; to harness curiosity, love of learning. There is a good article about the Teachers Role and one thing I picked up was “If the teacher feels joy of feels anger, it will be spread among children because the attitudes of the teacher gets contagious. If the teacher laughs, students also laugh, why? Because teachers are responsible for the social behavior in the classroom.” It’s so interesting to know that the teachers mood affects the learners as well. Which might not be the case with online teaching environment!

A facilitator is an individual who's job is to help to manage a process of information exchange. While an expert's" role is to offer advice, particularly about the content of a discussion, the facilitator's role is to help with HOW the discussion is proceeding. Interesting reading on the
Role of a Facilitator. The definition of facilitate is "to make easy" or "ease a process". What a facilitator does is plan, guide and manage a group event to ensure that the group's objectives are met effectively, with clear thinking, good participation and full buy-in from everyone who is involved.

The Moderator should:
· Introduce the topic of the session and the participants
· Manage the general discussion, make comments on the content of the presentation, identifying strengths and weaknesses, highlighting issues not fully addressed by the participants, asking questions to clarify the content, etc.
· Ensure good timekeeping so that there are no delays or over-runs;
· Summarise the main conclusions at the end of the session.

Moderators are generally accorded additional powers to enforce forum rules and conduct administrative tasks that cannot be trusted to ordinary users.

Difference
A teacher
is a person who imparts knowledge or skill through instruction or example while a learning facilitator is one who creates an environment in which someone can come to know something, acquire knowledge, or to gain information.

Reference Reading

1.) http://infolit.unitecnology.ac.nz/3doors/teachers_role.php
2.)
http://work911.com/articles/facil.htm
3.) http://www.mindtools.com/pages/article/RoleofAFacilitator.htm
4.)
http://www.oecd.org/document/18/0,3343,en_21571361_39644413_39717458_1_1_1_1,00.html
5.) http://www.bluehostforum.com/showthread.php?t=19
6.) http://nethowto.net/inquisitive/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=25&Itemid=2

Tuesday, August 11, 2009

What is an online community?

Hi Guys,

The Video Presentation by Michael Wesch seemed very interesting. I personally use youtube to watch family videos or entertainment, but had never realised the way we are communicating all around the world. As stated by Adrienne, he thinks that humans will always need to connect and communicate, but the tools/media that we use change the way the communication is delivered. I think it’s very true that we as humans will always need to connect and will use what ever tools or technology is available to us to communicate.

As said in the presentation that Media is not content, media are not just tools of communication, media mediate human relations. When media changes, than human relations change. Media do not just distance us, they connect us in different ways, that can sometimes feel distant, but sometimes that distance allows us to connect more deeply than ever before. My sister had performed a dance in Ausi and I was so desperate to see her dance, and was so glad to see it in you tube the next day. I personally think it is a really good way of sharing, trading and collaborating with the rest of the world.

It shows that most common videos in youtube are home Videos and the age group commonly using youtube is around the age of 18 to 25 years of age. His presentation also highlights the group of people who tends to put false information, which affects people feeling and thoughts, I think people should think twice before putting false or made up stories online. Users need to be more honest with their posts.

Overall I think presentation made me realise how widely youtube is being used worldwide.

The second resource I went through was the “Building Online Communities” and this was an interesting reading about; the Internet exists to improve communication and communities can grow anywhere communication occurs. In today’s world, a lot of people think that internet technology is for the digital natives, but I think anyone can be part of these online communities and share ideas and link with the rest of the world. I agree with the comment made “Without an underlying goal, it's extremely difficult to guide users in constructive ways”, in any sort of online community there should be some reasons for it to exist. And these reasons should be the factors drawing the users towards the online community. The community itself is not the only draw, in most cases, but it is a primary attractor. People like to fit in into an online community, and it takes making several new relationships to produce this impression.

As an online designer, not everything will work out as predicted or planned. A lot of times users would surprise you, they’ll latch onto and chase down ideas you've never found important or even knew existed. I think this is very true, because it’s hard to know who the audience are when designing an online community. If you see positive comments on the site, than you will know that the site is liked by many and it is a good site.

It is important to have the initial contribution for the online community easier that would encourage more contributors. The interface being used has to be user friendly and simple to use to make it easier for the users. It is also important to set some simple rules to maintain a good site.

Overall from this reading you can gather a lot of useful information about how to build a successful online community.

Some forms of evidence that I would look for when determining an online community are:
- Ways of online Interaction
- How people participate - Members
- Content – The better the content, the more members you will have
- Transactions - easier it is to do the transaction, the more involved members will become.


Looking forward to reading others ideas and perpectives :)

Regards
Krishan

Monday, August 3, 2009

Week 2

Hello Guys,

I am in the teaching environment for 5 years now, and in the last two years i took up a position as a facilitator, facilitaing face to face courses. These courses are online based and are available for distance learning as well. These teaching experience made me feel like exploring a bit more on online facilitation and how to use tools and skills to manage online facilitation.

I am looking forward for learning new skills that i can use to develop some of my own online teaching environments. May be in future take up other elearning courses as well to be up to date with the technologies and other elearning tools.

Looking forward to working with all of you :)

Regards
Krishan