Designing online/face-to-face events

I'm getting ready for the online preparation phase of a face-to-face meeting that will be taking place in Lisbon in October. People from different parts of the world will be spending an afternoon together because they are all partners in a programme in which each one plays a crucial part in their specific local context, but who haven't had a chance to see the wider context in which they are all working. 

The sponsoring organisation want to be sure that the afternoon when people are together face-to-face is productive -  productive in terms of supporting potential relationships and of supporting partnerships between participants who could contribute to a changing and shared vision for the future.

This isn't an uncommon scenario in international projects. And sponsoring organisations are coming to realise how much potential there is in having online preparation and post-event phases so that the precious face-to-face time can be used to its full potential.

Designing for these events always raises similar questions:

1. What technology should we use - a simple discussion group (Google or Yahoo groups?), a mix of tools (like a discussion group, social bookmarking, wiki, blogs, etc.?) or a Content/Course Management System (like Moodle, Drupal etc.)
2. How can we make the most of the fact that people speak different first languages, rather than letting different languages be a barrier?
3. How can we support those people who have easier access to e-mails than to the Internet.
4. How to support both those people who are comfortable with technologies, those who don't have a clue about technologies, and all those in between?

In the case of this particular meeting I have opted to use Drupal with the wonderful and patient help of David Wilcox whose blog is Designing for Civil Society and his son. In terms of technology and language Drupal has different language interfaces and we'll make use of Google language tools.  There are thirty people participating in the meeting, so signing everyone up to Squeet (free email RSS reader) is a way of making sure that people get many of the messages from the Drupal site by email, even if they don't go there or subscribe to the feed. We will probably use Bryght "a hosting web-site service" based on Drupal.

Of course the hardest part is not the technology. The tricky bit is people. In particular, as soon as you start changing  modes of communication, changing languages and exploring different ways of learning, then some connected things happen in terms of group dynamics:

• people are eased or pushed or fall out of their comfort zone;
• different people feel included or excluded in the conversations;
• power relations change as people who are invested in one mode, language, or way of learning can feel quite vulnerable in another.

Just changing one of these variables - technology, language or learning approach - is challenging enough. Changing all three can be very potent. I am interested to see how creatively we manage those tensions in relation to the mix of technology, language and potential learning.

Comments

[Bill Williams]

Thanks for giving us a peek behind the scenes Bev - it allows us readers to learn from the process, albeit vicariously.

I suspect many people, me included, feel they are pretty busy and don't have enough time to really ponder the underlying issues and objectives and so we tend to go with a tried and tested meeting strategy or software. Whereas you are being more ambitious here.

I'm keen to see how your reflective and analytical and approach to this event works out.

[Beverly Trayner]

Thanks Bill! No-one could ever accuse me of taking the easy road :-)

[joitske]

Hi, yesterday we had a meeting on Dgroups, and the more I learn about it, the more I like the way it works, as it is designed with low-bandwith users in mind. But I guess the problem is that you either need to be a partner, or working with a partner (21 organisations now already) to be able to open a Dgroup. Most people prefer it to yahoo group as it is simpler and has no adds. But thanks for sharing this! I have a long due blogpost on Dgroups, will post it soon.

[Beverly Trayner]

Thanks Joitske ... look forward to your post.

[josien kapma]

this is so very cool!
I really hope to be able to use tidbits in my work with emerging learning communities - thanks a lot for sharing with us.

[Beverly Trayner]

It's great to know it's useful. Keeps me posting!!

[MAGDA]

Hi Bev! This is a my try to get into contact! I will be arround!

[Beverly Trayner]

Hey Magda, I was happy to see your name pop up here on Knownet!
http://www.knownet.com/writing/weblogs/Graham_Attwell/entries/5088839959

[MAGDA]

Yes, Bev! I have been in Geneva last week and I attended a conference on research in education. I presented there my story as facilitator of an online course and I shared what I have learned! The role of online facilitators that you guided us to are flying around! I have attended also an workshop on Personal Learning Environment and I would be curious to see how your personal learning map would look like!

[Beverly Trayner]

Magda, my personal learning map would be quite a busy one :-)