Community Engagement

During the month of March, twenty leaders -past and present - as well as a few invited guests, participated in an online facilitation course. This course was funded by and specially designed for the Community Engagement project, and highlights the project’s continued commitment to providing practical and accessible professional development opportunities for past community leaders and their partner organisations.

The course was delivered through Gippstafe and facilitated by Frankie Forsyth and Josie Rose.

Highlights were the fabulous support provided by Vanessa and her team at GippsTAFE, the enthusiasm of the participants, and the expert facilitation - particularly Frankie’s fabulous modelling of good online facilitation in a range of online tools, but specifically, Elluminate. Although we are still waiting for the outcomes of the evaluation - we are confident that all the participants, who hailed from as far away as NT, Queensland, Tasmania, South Australia and Victoria, not only had a great time, but also found it a valuable and productive learning experience.

Participants were able to explore a wide variety of topics in the asynchronous discussion forum which ranged from why lurkers lurk, to online conflict, designing online activities and many more. They were also able to explore the potential of voice boards through having Brad Beach as a guest speaker talking about his flexible learning journey, including his experiences in the virtual world Second Life. Every week they participated in a synchronous activity, first a teleconference, then a text chat, and the highlight of the course - an Elluminate session.

Frankie took participants through the functionality of the room, explained the intricacies of WebCT through the desktop sharing tool, and then took participants to the e-learning on a shoestring website as a web tour. Everyone had plenty of opportunity to get to know each other and have fun - a choice of chairs being a particularly engaging ice breaker activity. Needless to say the lounge chairs of varying descriptions went first!

Although the course has only just been completed, initial evaluations indicate that it was a great success. The project team plans to conduct a further Elluminate session in a a few weeks’ time to discuss how participants are implementing these online tools and newly gained knowledge and skills in their course delivery. We are particularly interested in how professional development like this is contributing to their ongoing sustainability.

Well done everyone!