Post your reflections regarding your experience as an online facilitator. In your blog, address the synchronous and asynchronous experiences separately. Consider your expectations and fears. How did you prepare? Did you apply a different technique as the week progressed? Was it successful? Were you surprised by anything, pleasantly or otherwise? Has this experience changed your perspective on facilitation? And so on.
My second experience facilitating was much different from the first. For starters, I didn't facilitate the asynchronous sessions the first time and I had a partner to present with for the synchronous session. Having previous facilitation experience helped me to understand what to expect. It didn't prepare me for what actually happened.
Asynchronous
This time I interacted with my peers in the asynchronous sessions and gained some insight into who they are and how they plan to facilitate their online courses. I found it challenging to go through every thread of every conversation looking for responses to my posts or places to post. Sometimes there's just nothing to say. I enjoyed reading all of the ice breaker topics my fellow future facilitators will use. Some were really imaginative and others I've seen in previous classes.
Synchronous
My live session was challenging because I didn't have a room created. That means when I logged into the system there wasn't a virtual classroom waiting for me. The date of my live session was different from the previous sessions which threw my instructor off. She has to set up the room and give me administrator privileges to show my PowerPoint presentation to the class. We all went into a temporary room on the site and discussed our options. Initially I wanted to reschedule because the instructor wasn't online to grade my presentation. We weren't able to record the live session for her to hear later without administrative privileges. My classmates weren't that quick to give up. We brainstormed about using Blackboard instant messenger, Skype and eventually agreed to use the temporary chat room for voice and our course email to distribute the presentation. I was fine with this idea but I didn't have time to remove my notes from each page.
After I emailed everyone the presentation, things went great. We had a really interesting discussion on the use of Facebook in classroom settings. As a self appointed Facebook addict, I took great pleasure in answering the numerous questions regarding Facebook privacy. It seems the class was under the impression that Facebook settings were not changeable. We spent quite a bit of time on this topic at the end but they were involved throughout the entire presentation. I opened with an ice breaker asking everyone to type the room or place they were in during the facilitation.
Overall, I thought the session went well. I will have to record a session for others to hear but it won't be as interesting as the one I conducted live.
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