Wednesday, 30 July 2008


Week 1 (28th July, 2008 -1st August, 2008) Orientation


The course of Facilitating Online Communities starts this week. I was looking forward to learn more online facilitating skills and imagined it would be very interesting and a challenge for me.


Supposing as a tutor / trainer who facilitates online community should be very familiar with the "places" that can gather people together as a community, e.g. forum, discussion board, blogs, wiki, discussion group, etc. But I am a lil bit worried. Although I am working in computing fields for years, I am still not quite familiar with above mentioned "places". For example, I spend hours to set up this blog, play around and get familiar with it. But according to the course requirement for this week, I have to set up a RSS News Reader and subscribe to the blogs of others in the class. Now I am struggling try to do it successfully. Maybe it will take a while for me to get things done...


I completed three other Applied eLearning courses online. Actually I am not "brand new" to online study. Just feel strange why I feel very stressful for this course? Is it because I am not familiar with Wiki, google group, and RSS?


I hope I can continue and successfully complete this course. I know there are several "classmates" doing the last paper enrolled into this course too. But I cannot find them... shame


Well, this week will be extremely hard for me. First, I need to be familiar with all the new tools for this course. Second, I dont want to feel be isolated, so still need to find others and maybe add their blogs into mine? Well... see how far I can go

15 comments:

Bron Stuckey said...

Hiya Joy
Yes there is a LOT to take on in this first week and people in the course have started finding buddies to help them along the way. I think Leigh might put a space on the wiki for this. BTW your blog looks and sounds fantastic - you look like an old pro blogger!!!

Joy said...

Thx Bron. I posted an "ads" for finding a buddie. Hopefully I will have my buddie soon. And your comment is really encouraging and supportive. Thx a lot *_^

Bronwyn hegarty said...

hello Joy
Your blog does look great. I am a colleague of leigh and am participating on the fringes this time round.

Some of your previous class mates who you might want to contact again have their blogs listed on the wiki discussion page under the heading - Making a start.

At: http://wikieducator.org/
Talk:Facilitating_online_communities
#lqt_thread_3330
(Copy the complete URL.)

If you are feeling overwhelmed perhaps start subscribing to blogs of people you know first using whichever RSS news reader you have decided upon. Then pick a few which have similar interests to yourself. In a class this size people tend to clump together.

New technologies do take a lot more time until you have had a go - you are not alone in that.

A good idea to find a buddy as Bronwyn mentioned. Ask Leigh who your Grad Cert class mates are in the course if that would help.

Anonymous said...

This is Derek, checking in from the FOC.

Little by little is my advice. Having an RSS reader set up will help with the skimming and scanning, is there someone near you you can ask?

I have not sorted the blogs for this course yet into my reader - I'm just looking around a bit tonight.

As Leigh did say: the first week is the worst.

Joy said...

Thx guys. Yeah, Brownwyn thx for that. I will contact with the fellow classmates and try to group myself in.

Thx derek. Yes, now I am trying to spend more time in the new technologies.

Hopefully with all you guys' support and help I can be familiar with the new technologies soon. Fingers crossed...

viovio said...

Hey Joy,
I'm sure you'll complete the tasks with no problems. Just relax :)
I'm not really a computer savvy, but I've been participating in conferences and courses related to web 2.0 for some time so if you need help don't hesitate to contact me :)
http://fco08violeta.blogspot.com

Elaine Dittert said...

Hi Joy Great to see you in this paper - Kay (from the eLearning Solutions paper) and I are sitting together right now trying to figure this all out!

Kay Lewis said...

Hi Joy

I've just added your blog into my RSS Feeds and can finally say I've completed Week 1 - the journey has begun!

I look forward to joining you again in this learning journey!

Leigh Blackall said...

Its great to see everyone giving Joy some encouragement. Hope this is helping you to feel less isolated Joy :) And remember, I am only a phone call away if you need some help.

Joe LaFitte said...

Hi Joy, I too am no stranger to learning online but this first week of this course had my head pounding with all the different blog technologies, email subscription that fed way to many emails to read and follow. But having gotten a blog sorted out made a posting and even RSS feeds coming in things are starting to settle. Hopefully now the discussion and reflection will begin.

Joy said...

Thanks Vcautin. The link you provided on Google group about setting up RSS Feed is really helpful. I've done it following the instructions. Finally tasks for week 1 have been settled. I start to enjoy trying the new techs now ^_^ Thx a lot.

Joy said...

Hello, Elaine & Kay. So nice to "see" you guys here again. I've added your blogs into my feed and will keep posting on them. Looking forward to having the new again with you guys ^_*

Joy said...

Hollo, Topsail
Nice to start the course with you. Can you please let me know your blog for this course so I can add you into my feed?

Cheers,

Joy said...

Thank Leigh.
After several days struggle now I proundly say I completed the tasks for week one. With reading the posts and trying the new technology I started enjoy the course now. Isnt it a good beginning ^_^

Anonymous said...

I started this blog when the course began. This is my first blog ever. I didn't undestand about the RSS feeds either so what I did was I went to "Layout" and added a gadget that let me put a links list up. (Just search gadgets for "link"). Then I put all of the blogs into the sidebar with that gadget. But it took a heck of a long time to go through 60 blogs and a bunch are not being updated. There are only about 10 or 15 blogs that are updated regularly. If you look at the sidebar in my blog, you will see most of the best blogs at the top of the list.
In the close of the last meeting, Leigh suggested that we organize our own little 2 or 3 person mini-meetings. That might be a good way to check in with eachother and cross reference our blogs and verify that we are all up to date with eachother.
Since you have a google account, you also have the new google groupchat in your gmail. That could be a very handy platform that everybody else is familiar with too.