Wednesday, October 1, 2008

Week 9 - Wiki Collaborators

Yet again I have ventured into unchartered waters this week... Now we are asked to set up and facilitate an online mini conference! So how to go about this task?

Background information:

Kay Lewis and I work at the same educational institute and have been buddying up since this course began. Both of us are in the same boat of being relative newbies to wikis, blogs etc and so we have been encouraging each other along (thank goodness).

So when it came to this week we decided the best way to get over this next hurdle was to collaborate on the online mini conference. We thought that with joint facilitation we would not feel too isolated, and would have each other for support.

How did we come up with the idea? Well both of us have really struggled with the sheer amount of information to get through in this course. Blogs, wikis, discussions forums, postings, comments... how on earth could we keep it all together? (and ourselves sane!) Kay is a Buzan Licensed Instructor in Mind Mapping and someone had made a comment on her blog which made us think - would others be interested in this technique? It helps us organise our thoughts, how about the others in FOC 08 group?

So our idea for the mini conference is all about the topic of Mind Mapping, with the headline (TLC) Think, Learn & Create using Mind Maps.

Overview of mini conference

Title:
TLC (Think, Learn & Create) using Mind Maps.

This will take the form of an online discussion, followed by an online presentation (using Elluminate or Skype)

Facilitation:
Jointly with Kay Lewis

Aim:
This session is designed to provide participants with pointers to help gather and organise large amounts of data and provide a clear overview, analyse thoughts, identify problem solving ideas and generate more ideas with clarity, efficiency and accuracy.

Promotions for the session:
We hope to have the following presenters as guest speakers:
  • Jennifer Goddard, BBus (Admin), Master of Entrepreneurship and Innovation, Master Trainer in Buzan Advanced Learning Techniques, inspirational Director of the Buzan Centre in Australia and New Zealand and co-founder of Mindwerx International.
  • Jennie Vickers, Buzan Licensed Instructor, (senior advanced coach), Masters of Management, Diploma in BA, BA Law (Hons), Leadership NZ alumnus.
Summary of the mini conference:
  • Have you had difficulty keeping up with the 'overload of information' during this course?
  • Got confused or lost by trying to view all the discussion threads?
  • Have you jotted down some thoughts and ideas you've read and heard but by the time you're ready to read and make your notes they make no sense?
If this sounds like you, this session may be just what you need. Mind maps are a dynamic way to capture significant points of information. They use a global format, allowing information to be displayed in the same way that our brain functions in many directions simultaneously.

Event time:
Friday 31 October 11 am (New Zealand Daylight Savings Time DST) (Note that NZ time is now UTC+13 hrs)

Discussion starters:
In the Course Mini Conference Discussion thread we have asked for ideas and questions from potential participants. We will monitor this prior to the online conference.

Technical support services:
For this mini conference we plan to use either:
  • Skype - Conference call (participants will need: internet access, preferably Broadband, webcam and headset with microphone preferably) OR
  • Elluminate through the 24/7 Discussion Forum

Participants will also need access to:

  • YouTube
  • Wikipedia/Wikieducator
  • Adobe Reader
  • Microsoft Office - MS Word, MS PowerPoint

Contingency plan:

There are several issues we need to consider:

  • Time of online event (may conflict with another event, respond to feedback given in the discussion thread)
  • If oversubscribed (maximum 24 participants at a Skype session), will we need to arrange alternative event/s
  • Loss of internet connection (either us as facilitators or the participants)
  • Recording of the event: In Skype History of conversation can be used.

Conclusion:

We hope that this online mini conference will attract people from the FOC 08 course to help them with information overload and how to deal with it.

If you would like to post a question on our Wiki discussion area, please click here.

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