1) Great face-to-face facilitators are not always great digital facilitators. Facilitating in digital environments requires a different set of skills.
2) We all have a lot to learn. Digital up-skilling should be continuous for anyone working online.
3) The virtual spaces where digital facilitation takes place are not all created equal. We need to be humble while we strive to overcome any limitations.<\/p>\n
2 questions I have about digital facilitation:<\/strong><\/p>\n 1) How can facilitators humanize the online experience? In particular, how can they create natural dialogue in these spaces? 1 metaphor or simile about digital facilitation:<\/strong><\/p>\n Digital facilitation and the Six Blind Men and the Elephant<\/a><\/span> parable.<\/strong><\/p>\n Digital facilitation is like the Six Blind Men and the Elephant<\/a><\/span><\/span> parable.\u00a0 Just like in this story, it appears that depending on the function of digital facilitation you are looking at \u2014 whether it be pedagogical, managerial, social, or technical \u2014 you may get a very different image of what digital facilitation is. For instance, Rohfeld & Hiemstra (1995) write that digital facilitation is about modeling \u201ceffective learning and keeping discussions on track, providing special knowledge and perceptions, combining course content, and maintaining group harmony\u201d (as cited in Martin et al., 2020<\/span><\/a>, p. 30). Rourke et al. (2001) assert it involves \u201cproviding administrative responsibilities, procedural leadership, planning and developing course materials, organizing the course, deciding the dues dates, and pacing the online discussions\u201d (as cited in Martin et al., 2020<\/span><\/a>, p. 31) Berge (2008) believes it involves \u201cpromoting student-student or student-instructor relationships, developing cohesive groups, and helping students work together\u201d (as cited in Martin et al., 2020<\/span><\/a>, p. 31). While Martin & Parker (2014) claim it involves helping learners get familiar with the content and communication technologies being used within the digital space by creating opportunities to interact with \u201caudio, video, text chat, interactive whiteboard, and applications\u201d (as cited in Martin et al., 2020<\/span><\/a>, p.31). So, just like in the Six Blind Men and the Elephant, it is impossible to fully grasp digital facilitation by only examining its parts. Digital facilitation is best understood by looking at all of its functions together as a whole.<\/p>\n <\/em><\/p>\n <\/em><\/p>\n References:<\/em><\/p>\n Blind men and an elephant (n.d.). Wikipedia<\/em>. Retrieved from: https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Blind_men_and_an_elephant<\/p>\n Martin, F., Wang, C., & Sadaf, A. (2020). Facilitation matters: Instructor perception of helpfulness of facilitation strategies in online courses. Online Learning, 24<\/em>(1), 28-49. https:\/\/doi.org\/10.24059\/olj.v24i1.1980<\/p>\n[\/et_pb_text][\/et_pb_column][\/et_pb_row][\/et_pb_section]\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" This week in LRNT528, we were asked to write a blog post on our initial response to the topic of digital facilitation using a format known as 3-2-1. The following are my initial thoughts about digital facilitation using the 3-2-1 structure. 3 initial thoughts about facilitation in digital environments: 1) Great face-to-face facilitators are not […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":199,"featured_media":1196,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"on","_et_pb_old_content":"This week in LRNT528, we were asked to write a blog post on our initial response to the topic of digital facilitation using a format known as 3-2-1. The following are my initial thoughts about digital facilitation using the 3-2-1 structure.\r\n\r\n3 initial thoughts about facilitation in digital environments:<\/strong>\r\n\r\n1) Great face-to-face facilitators may not be great digital facilitators. \r\n2) We all have a lot to learn. Digital up-skilling should be continuous for anyone working in digital environments.\r\n3) The virtual spaces where digital facilitation takes place are not created equal, so we need to be humble while we strive to overcome any limitations.\r\n\r\n2 questions I have about digital facilitation:<\/strong>\r\n\r\n1) How can facilitators humanize the online experience? In particular, how can they create natural dialogue in these spaces?\r\n2) What does it take to run effective online sessions where everyone can be heard? In other words, how do you make each member feel involved when facilitating a large and diverse group?\r\n\r\n1 metaphor or simile about digital facilitation:<\/strong>\r\n\r\n
2) What does it take to run effective online sessions where everyone can be heard? In other words, how do you make each member feel involved when facilitating a large and diverse group?<\/p>\n![\"blind](\"https:\/\/malat-webspace.royalroads.ca\/rru0205\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/199\/2022\/08\/TGMM_Blind_Elephant.png\")
Image courtesy of Farnam Street Media Inc. <\/em><\/em><\/p>\n\r\nImage courtesy of Farnam Street Media Inc. <\/em><\/em>\r\n\r\nTo me, digital facilitation is like the Six Blind Men and the Elephant<\/a> parable. The moral of this story is that people tend to claim absolute truth based on their own limited, subjective experience. At the same time, they ignore the limited, subjective experiences of others, which may be equally valid in their own way. Just like in this example, it appears that depending on the function of digital facilitation you are looking at \u2014 whether it be pedagogical, managerial, social, or technical \u2014 you\u2019ll get a very different image of what digital facilitation is. For instance, Rohfeld & Hiemstra (1995) write that digital facilitation is about modeling \u201ceffective learning and keeping discussions on track, providing special knowledge and perceptions, combining course content, and maintaining group harmony\u201d (as cited in Martin et al., 2020, p. 30). Rourke et al. (2001) assert it involves \u201cproviding administrative responsibilities, procedural leadership, planning and developing course materials, organizing the course, deciding the dues dates, and pacing the online discussions\u201d (as cited in Martin et al., 2020, p. 31) Berge (2008) believes it involves \u201cpromoting student-student or student-instructor relationships, developing cohesive groups, and helping students work together for their shared benefit are helpful to the success of online learning activities\u201d (as cited in Martin et al., 2020, p.31). While Martin & Parker (2014) claim it involves helping learners become comfortable with the content and communication technologies being used within a digital environment by creating opportunities to interact with \u201caudio, video, text chat, interactive whiteboard, and applications\u201d (as cited in Martin et al., 2020, p.31). So, just like in the Six Blind Men and the Elephant, it is impossible to comprehend digital facilitation, and its entirety by only grasping parts of it. \r\n\r\nReferences:<\/em>\r\n \r\nBlind men and an elephant (n.d.). Wikipedia<\/em>. Retrieved from: https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Blind_men_and_an_elephant\r\n\r\nMartin, F., Wang, C., & Sadaf, A. (2020). Facilitation matters: Instructor perception of helpfulness of facilitation strategies in online courses. Online Learning, 24<\/em>(1), 28-49. https:\/\/doi.org\/10.24059\/olj.v24i1.1980\r\n\r\n","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1190","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-lrnt528"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/malat-webspace.royalroads.ca\/rru0205\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1190","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/malat-webspace.royalroads.ca\/rru0205\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/malat-webspace.royalroads.ca\/rru0205\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/malat-webspace.royalroads.ca\/rru0205\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/199"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/malat-webspace.royalroads.ca\/rru0205\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1190"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/malat-webspace.royalroads.ca\/rru0205\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1190\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1204,"href":"https:\/\/malat-webspace.royalroads.ca\/rru0205\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1190\/revisions\/1204"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/malat-webspace.royalroads.ca\/rru0205\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1196"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/malat-webspace.royalroads.ca\/rru0205\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1190"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/malat-webspace.royalroads.ca\/rru0205\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1190"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/malat-webspace.royalroads.ca\/rru0205\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1190"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}