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This Quick Guide looks at effective online facilitation and its importance in online teaching and learning. Specifically it unpacks the various interpretations of 'facilitation', the impact of online mediums on teacher and student roles, facilitation strategies, and emerging models and theories. The focus of this guide is on practical application and strategies associated with the facilitation of student learning. This guide will be of relevance principally to teachers and learning support staff delivering courses or supporting students online, and designers of online teaching programs.

Facilitating Online 2011 Facilitation is a rare and valuable skill to have. It is a service that is often used in conferences, debates, panels and tutorials, or simply where groups of people are meeting and need someone to help negotiate meaning and understanding, and to keep everyone engaged and on task. This online course is designed to help people to access and interpret models, research, and develop professional expertise in online facilitation.

This wiki is a resource collection place for Nancy White, Full Circle Associates and an adjunct to the Online Facilitation list on Yahoogroups, founded in August 1999. Consider it a general playground around online facilitation and online community work. When I can, I will do client work here openly that may be useful to others. Consider it a shared resource. Feel free to add other categories.

Live Online Learning - a facilitators guide Virtual classrooms provide a fantastic opportunity for any organisation that wants to get more training done more cheaply, particularly when participants are widely dispersed. Many of the skills of the classroom trainer can be transferred without difficulty to an online setting, but the experience can still be strange and sometimes a little daunting for those starting off as virtual classroom facilitators. This ebook brings together best practice guidelines from around the world and from our own extensive experience. It will provide you with invaluable support as you look to transfer your skills online. To get your free copy of our Live Online Learning ebook just click the Pay with a Tweet button below and use Twitter or Facebook to help us spread the word.

Facilitation: Is largely around helping people connect, share, and learn together; disrupting the walls that keep them apart, understanding the purpose behind their interactions and assisting them achieve this in the longer term. Moderation: When issues arise, 'moderation' is the set of communications and processes thing that deals with them.

Mark Zuckerbergs mission is "rewire the way people spread and consume information." The point of that epic rewiring job is to facilitate sharing 

As Morin says of information: "Information is not an end-of-the-line concept, but rather, a point-of-departure concept" (14). As he says later, we must learn to define from the center out, not from the outside in. Siemens says about the basic principles of Connectivism in his online book Knowing Knowledge (2006): Learning and knowledge require diversity of opinions to present the whole … and to permit selection of best approach. Learning is a network formation process of connecting specialized nodes or information sources.  Knowledge rests in networks. Knowledge may reside in non-human appliances and learning is enabled/facilitated by technology. Capacity to know more is more critical than what is currently known. Learning and knowing are constant, on going processes (not end states or products). Ability to see connections and recognize patterns and make sense between fields, ideas, and concepts is the core skill for individuals today. Currency (accurate, up-to-date knowledge) is the intent of all connectivist learning activities. Decision-making is learning. Choosing what to learn and the meaning of incoming information is seen through the lens of a shifting reality. While there is a right answer now, it may be wrong tomorrow due to alterations in the information climate affecting the decision.

"What are the questions we are not asking that prevent us from seeing further possibility? Types of Good Questions 1."Wait-a-minute" -- The ones that make us pause and realize there is more to discover. 2."Sit-on-it" -- Questions that can't be answered when they are asked. They require some time to think, and perhaps even let go of for a time. 3."Address-the-grand-assumption" -- Or as Hani, one of the participants challenged, address even the smaller assumptions. Karen, one participant from a team of county planners, asked this type of question regarding her work -- "well, when did we start believing that we needed to pave all of our roads?" She was thinking systemically, aware of the cost and resource implications of that assumption. 4."Name-the-elephant" -- The unspoken that many people know and feel, and that if left unaddressed, renders the work less meaningful or real. Arguably blocked and ineffective. 5."Still-cooking" -- The ones that keep us actively learning. Or even better, reaching, stretching, letting go, reorganizing, innovating. I found this in this cafe as I further explored best practices (things like marketing decisions), as well as field practices (things like non-local effects). The latter from the awareness that many of us were describing big dreams and projects that feel like they run into walls of systemic resistance. Or that seem to not have much impact. The belief we were exploring, named as the impact of a morphogenic field, was that even running into a wall in one area of work can have a non-local effect, increasing the likelihood that another seemingly unrelated bit of work will be successful. Like the way the 4-minute mile was forever a significant barrier broken by nobody, yet, once accomplished, was broken by many. 6."Antenna-out" -- Yes, another variation of continuous learning and attention giving. But even further, an invitation to be learning on behalf of the whole. One participant, Marilyn Hami

Benefits of Online Discussions