Return-Path: <nifl-aalpd@literacy.nifl.gov> Received: from literacy (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by literacy.nifl.gov (8.10.2/8.10.2) with SMTP id i35CQom23875; Mon, 5 Apr 2004 08:26:50 -0400 (EDT) Date: Mon, 5 Apr 2004 08:26:50 -0400 (EDT) Message-Id: <5.1.0.14.2.20040402231724.01687cd8@pop.utk.edu> Errors-To: listowner@literacy.nifl.gov Reply-To: nifl-aalpd@literacy.nifl.gov Originator: nifl-aalpd@literacy.nifl.gov Sender: nifl-aalpd@literacy.nifl.gov Precedence: bulk From: Duren Thompson <solveig@utk.edu> To: Multiple recipients of list <nifl-aalpd@literacy.nifl.gov> Subject: [NIFL-AALPD:1332] Re: : participating online or at a X-Listprocessor-Version: 6.0c -- ListProcessor by Anastasios Kotsikonas Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"; format=flowed X-Mailer: QUALCOMM Windows Eudora Version 5.1 Status: O Content-Length: 2283 Lines: 43 At 02:27 PM 3/31/2004 -0500, Jennifer Elmore wrote: >[snip] >In a nutshell, I think that pure distance training experiences tend to >require more from the facilitator, especially at first. S/he bears more >of the community-building burden, I think, and must be prepared to >actively engage participants - both individually and as a group. > >Jennifer We think this is true as well. I, as a facilitator, work very hard to be a caring, supportive, "nurturer" in an online venue. Sandra and I started with this belief from the very beginning - based on a presentation we heard from an online course facilitator at the Univeristy of Florida. He was supporting campus-based courses, and emphasized the real need to be "available" to online learners - for tech support, encouragement, and cheerleading - especially in the critical 1st 1-2 weeks. This is where we drew our "1st week slowly" model from. I was startled recently on an online evaluation to have someone complain that "The facilitator only talked to me twice during the course - I felt ignored.." (Broke my heart actually. I was upset for days.) Early on Sandra and I found that if *we* responded to everyone's posts - they didn't seem to talk to each other much. *We* were meeting their need for interaction - so we worked to "randomly" respond and encourage conversation amongst participants on the Discussion Boards. This meant that a quiet, uninsightful/average poster could get "lost" in the "randomization." Now I actually keep a list of participant's names by me when I "randomly post" and check mark who iI post to. If they haven't heard from me directly in over 2 weeks (nothing they've posted has "moved" me to comment), I deliberately make sure I respond to them to keep them from feeling ignored. Feels silly - like I'm working to be "fair" with small children - but it seems to be important. Not that I feel we have the whole "encouraging insightful, collaborative interactive on the Discussion Board" thing down by any means - no we regularly fret over it (and I'm taking a number of these cool ideas back with me to try). But these things *do* seem to make a difference in *retention* of AE practitioners in Online courses. Duren Thompson Center for Literacy Studies
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