Showing posts with label unconference. Show all posts
Showing posts with label unconference. Show all posts

Sunday, June 05, 2022

Professional Development for the Modern Era

THIS ARTICLE WAS ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED IN A BOOK AND WIKI THAT ARE NO LONGER AVAILABLE.


“The sum of the expertise of the people in the audience is greater and the sum of expertise of the people on the stage.” (Dave Winer)

In September 2006 a group of people were invited to New Zealand to take part in the Future of Learning in a Networked World (FLNW). Sponsored by the Otago Polytechnic in Dunedin, FLNW was variously referred to as an unconference, an open space conference, a bar camp, or even a travelling elearning circus or roadshow. Invited participants mostly referred to it as an unconference - the prefix ‘un’ denoted a definitive contrast from the typical style of ‘stand and deliver’ professional development event that we were all familiar with

Was it a plane? Was it a bird? No it was...

What transpired in this 10 day event was actually a combination of unconference, open space, and bar camp. The notion of bar camp or unconference seems to have stemmed from a technological imperative. From Wikipedia: “bar camp is an international network of unconferences - open participatory workshop-events, whose content is provided by participants - focusing on early stage web applications and related open source technologies and social protocols. “

The unconference: “an unconference is a conference where the content of the sessions is driven and created by the participants, generally day by day during the course of the event, rather than by a single organiser, or small group of organisers, in advance.” FLNW was an open participatory workshop event where the content of the sessions was driven and created by participants and it employed open space technology (OST), a term that describes a process rather than the use of any particular technology:

“OST is a meeting methodology... its essential core is the invitation to take responsibility for what you have passion for. The remarkable outcome of this simple idea is that when participants do so, the needs of both the individual and the collective are met.”

So was FLNW a bar camp, unconference, or an open space conference? It had elements of all three. This paper will refer to it as an unconference that employed open space processes. It was therefore:

·         open - it was free and all interested parties were invited

·         fluid and negotiated - there was no set agenda

In the lead up to the event sponsors and location hosts did express a desire for more structure up front so they could more effectively promote the event. This created some tension in the group as some were very definite about the fact that there would be no preplanning or prepared agenda. From the sponsor's point of view one can appreciate their dilemma. They were unsure about promoting the event as merely ‘a group of visiting elearning experts will be here to talk about the future of learning’, with no timetable or session titles. This highlights a subtle difference between a conference and an unconference. One promotes a conference; one should invite people to an unconference. It needs to be explicit that all comers have equal rights of participation, and that everyone will help create the topics and organise sessions. They will be part of the show. It will in fact be their show - it's owned by those who attend.

For the most part those who favoured minimal planning had their way. However, the group may have erred in its reluctance to impose any structure on the process used to generate discussion topics. I think an agreed process would have been more effective in generating the foci of sessions, and may have resulted in more options for participants. Having to negotiate process and the range of topics at the start of group sessions was a little confounding, but this path was taken in a kind of pioneering spirit. Like ‘let's see what happens if we leave it completely open?’ The group sessions were successful. It is only in retrospect that it became clear that there is 20 years of open space theory that may have enabled FLNW to be more efficient in the use of planning time. Or unplanning time so to speak. One can devote a lot of time to debating why one should not plan!

 

Locations

Over the course of 10 days FLNW travelled to six separate locations in NZ and took place on campuses, in museums, community centres, private homes, schools, trains, boats, planes, bars and restaurants. Most scheduled events were located in advertised venues like campuses and community spaces that could cater for up to 100 participants per session.

 

What happened in these sessions?

Initially a location facilitator would welcome everyone and introduce the international speakers, who in turn spoke briefly (mostly) about their areas of interest and expertise. The invited speakers were seated around the room, each with a laptop and data projector, and after these initial introductions participants were free to join any of the invited guests for an open discussion within their broad area of knowledge and expertise.

These sessions went very smoothly. Participants self-selected their chosen focus group and floated between groups as desired. There was no compulsion to stay with anyone group for any length of time - in accordance with the core component of open space process: the Law of Two Feet. The Law of Two Feet - a foot of passion and a foot of responsibility - expresses the core idea of taking responsibility for what you love. In practical terms, the law says that if you're neither contributing nor getting value where you are, use your two feet (or available form of mobility) and go somewhere where you can.

“The phenomenon of self-organization lies at the heart of Open Space.” (Harrison Owen)

Owen compares this self-organisation phenomenon with what Kaufmann suggests happens in the natural world.  Kaufmann suggests that self-organisation will only occur if there are few prior connections between the elements; indeed he says no more than two.  In retrospect, it seems to make sense. If everything is hardwired in advance how could it self-organise?” How many of us at professional development events will automatically home in on people we know and sit with them in any group activity, rather than let the topic of the activity determine which group we should join?

Other types of events included a train ride of several hours duration where interested parties joined the touring guests for small group discussions on board, link ups with international participants via virtual classroom tools, visits to schools and colleges, and a working breakfast

 


The Process - An Evaluation

An event of this nature cannot help but have a profound effect on those involved. It's daring format with no set agendas or programme other than a series of chosen locations geographically disparate on set days meant that the touring party were effectively together for several days at a time without a break. Many of the party had only met virtually before this event and as happens when any group of people is thrust together for days on end there were a range of interpersonal issues that arose that needed addressing. On the plus side, this forced continual companionship meant that the unconference became a 24/7 affair where issues raised in the sessions of the day could be discussed after hours over dinner or during transport to the next port of call.

The nature of the content under review and the wired  ‘always on’ nature of the touring guests meant that there was an extraordinary amount of data recorded and posted on the web. Discrete sets of this data could be accessed via RSS feed, and in the recently released ebook and DVD. (no longer available)

Though these interpersonal dynamics and the nature and volume of content produced are worth articles in their own right, it is the intention of this paper to focus more on the process of teaching and learning that occurred, evaluate its effectiveness, and assist the potential relevance of this type of professional development for the education sector. It should be said here that the sheer impracticality of the logistics of this kind of event make it unlikely that this model would be adopted by many organisations, but there is much that can be adopted for one or two day conferences. There was general consensus among the invited group that 10 days was too long and that five days seemed an optimal amount of time. The length of the event clearly depends on the goals of the exercise. If one of the goals is to build individual capacity and confidence by drawing on group dynamics then an event of around five days may be necessary.

One of the intriguing aspects of FLNW was that it did require individual resolve to function effectively in the larger group, but this was not a stated goal of the event. It did however highlight the fact that working effectively in groups is not a given. It is a skill that needs to be learned. And not all members of the group saw working in groups as implicitly of value. Whether one sees value in working in groups, or is able to do it effectively, has enormous implications for a group of educators ordaining collective, collaborative learning as a core requirement of learning in a connected world. There was vociferous debate on the nature and worth of groups and networks during FLNW, and for several weeks online after the physical event was over.

 

Group Sessions

The group sessions were surprisingly efficient and free of awkward pauses or leave taking. Participants understood that they were free to change groups whenever they wished, and could join other discussions mid-stream in a free flowing movement around the room as group sizes fluctuated between small gatherings of just a few people do groups of 20 or so. Occasionally people in the shared space became aware of a particularly important or engaging discussion in one corner of the room and people would drift over to that part of the room to listen to the debate. A short movie from Derek Chirnside, our host in Christchurch from the then Christchurch College of Education (now part of the University of Canterbury) gives a glimpse of what typically happened during these concurrent smaller group sessions. Another short movie from Stephen Parker asked the questions” does the unconference model work? And interestingly, how can the unconference format be used with students in a classroom environment? (these videos no longer available)

“I think it's really important to keep in mind that you can't get students to do group work and sharing and talking together, but giving them the option to move out and get on with their own work, that's really empowering and motivating, they might take snippets from the discussion and then say, yes this is what I need and get on with their own work. It's more about enabling them to learn the material in their own way.” Yvonne Wood

On other occasions small groups would splinter off to work on a specific task. Sometimes individuals would take photographs or movies or interview onlookers or other guests about proceedings using cameras, PC media recording devices, or phones. Samples of this ad hoc on the fly content can be seen on the unconference blog

OST suggests that these sessions should be preceded by a listing of all interested topics up on a wall or similar so participants can see at a glance what topics were being covered in that session, but there is no prescriptive way of going about this. A group of staff in NSW approached the pre discussion stage by encouraging staff to state whether they wanted to share, learn, or do something, and formed groups around that process.

There was recurrent comment on the empowering aspect of the unconference format for the classroom from many teachers and discussion on the types of physical open and closed spaces that could contribute to the success. This movie illustrates a potential classroom open space that can facilitate group discussion or where individuals can just go off into a corner and get on with their own thing, separate to the group activity. (no longer available)

 

The Role of ‘Experts’

FLNW had at its core a group of invited experts - some with an international profile - and their presence guaranteed a basic quorum of participants as these guests had pulling power. It also served as a bargaining chip when canvassing for funding for the event. Funding bodies, largely educational institutions, were more likely to fund an event that had significant profile due to the presence of international guests.

It was to be expected at the start of the group sessions that the work of these visiting guest experts would serve as initial focal points for discussion. Although participants had turned up for the day's proceedings were invited to contribute to the initial spruikings on topics that interested them, few did. The presence of the invited experts no doubt made this a daunting task, but OST is emphatic that this opportunity be given to all participants. This enables all participants, not just those with the recognised profile, to pitch for discussions on things that interested them.

Having visiting experts meant that discussion topics tended to be formulated around their interests. Though the group discussions were sufficiently fluid to allow for addressing topics brought to bear by participants, it would have been preferable that sessions/discussions were formed around the expressed interests of participants rather than the invited experts. Given that the collective expertise of the invited speakers was very broad, it was likely that they could have led, or contributed significantly to, sessions on any topic suggested by participants anyway.

 


The role of media: personal and group publishing

The nature of the people invited to FLNW, and its focus on education in the networked world, meant that there was a proliferation of personal and group media created and published - that is after all how network teachers and learners network - they publish. Every minute and every day which is likely to be recorded, blogged, podcast, photographed or filmed and published to the web. It is not a criterion of OST, but for the unconference, with its origins in learning about technology via new approaches, it is a fair expectation that there be an electronic and public record.

“All conversations, whether to the entire room or one to one, unless otherwise stated, clearly and upfront, are on the record and for attribution. You do not need to ask permission to quote something you hear. Of course you may ask for permission to quote, and you may choose not to quote things you hear.”

Many conferences publish proceedings after the event, but these are subject to a peer review process. In an unconference, publishing is occurring virtually as it happens without any editorial process. As Stephen Downes remarked during the Christchurch session, this is one of the factors that distinguishes the old from the new world of learning. In the new world, any peer review or assessment of content happens after publishing, and the network or networks decide its value.

However, the constant documentation of FLNW meant that inevitably there would be a whole raft of material that was not of much value - out of focus photographs, blurred video, poor audio quality, half-baked ideas – all there in the public domain. Some FLNW participants consequently suggested that not all the media documenting the event be made public, and that some editorial discretion be used before it was published.

All professional development activities should be documented. In the spirit of an unconference this should be done as it happens. One could choose the path of BloggerCon and state up front that all activity may be ‘on the record and for attribution. ‘ An alternative option may be to let participants know that if they don't want their image, voice, or ideas on the public record it is incumbent upon them to make that request at any given time, but it would seem impractical to have participants evaluate their input into an activity as it's happening and decide that they don't want it on the record. It would be unfortunate too if any hesitation about the value of one's contribution stymied one’s input. Another core component of OST is that ‘whoever comes are the right people’, and by inference then, whatever is said is the right thing to say at the time. Part of working in a networked world is accepting that your input is part of the eventual and continually evolving body of knowledge, and that it will be adopted, modified, or discarded. It is not what you say (or how you look or sound in that blurred video) that is of primary importance - it is what the network does with the information you provided that matters more.

It is asking a lot of some people though to expect them to happily accept that their thoughts and actions go on record. Some people are private personalities; Some require time to assimilate ideas before they can respond eloquently. As one participant on the video at an unconference PD event trial inspired by FLNW says,  “it's all about getting used to being visible”.

 

Relevance for you and your organisation

imagine that you arrive at a one or two day conference and there is no set agenda or programme. I posed this question to a group of staff at a professional development session soon after I returned from FLNW and the response from the approximately 20 people present was overwhelmingly positive. One person did comment that they would feel cheated but others thought ‘it would be fantastic’.

If you take this approach the first hour or so of the day is taken up with a collaborative discussion designed to formulate the day's programme. The FLNW model showed that a more open approach to professional development can work. Professional development events, even those of one to three days duration, do not need invited experts or guest facilitators.

Participants knowing in advance that they are coming to address an advertised topic, or perhaps to solve a recognised problem, and knowing too that it is the reason that people will come - not to listen to experts or speakers on a prearranged agenda - is a strength based approach to professional development that promotes greater buy-in and commitment. Knowing that the success of the FLNW event would rest on the input of all of us, a group of FLNW participants spent the day before it got underway in engaged and prolonged discussion: “the learning and discussion on the future of learning had begun in earnest without a single presentation!” Such is the power of inviting people to attend an event and letting them know they will have significant input into the structure and outcome of the event, as it will build on what they know and bring to the table, and not what others deem they should know.

 

Workers for the knowledge era

If our educational institutions are to train their teachers to function effectively in the knowledge era, they need to offer training that reflects the new learning. Work in the knowledge era is characterised by:

·         processes and structures that are more emergent than predictable

·         tacit knowledge, which can only be shared through relationship, conversation, and interaction

·         networks: who and how you know is as important as what you know.

 

A knowledge worker needs to know how to collaborate

The unconference with its open space approach to professional development is a model more likely to foster the kinds of skills and attitudes suitable for the knowledge era than the deficit model. The deficit model may have outlived its usefulness as the primary means of staff development. The unconference allows for group commitment to a process that is negotiated in non-hierarchical network entities. It allows the opportunity to become familiar with the unpredictable and emergent through negotiating content as it evolves. It validates, and capitalises on, the knowledge that everyone brings to the event and assumes that the collective expertise of the rank and file is as valuable as the knowledge and opinions of export experts or those in authority.

 

References

1.       Dave Winer; What is an unconference? 

2.       Harrison Owen; Opening Space For Emerging Order       

dI    Diana and James Oblinger: Is it age or IT: firststeps towards understanding the net generation 

4.       Dave Weiner; Blogger con for newbies 

5.       Maret Staron, Robbie Weatherly,  Marie Jasinski; Life-based learning- a newframework for capability  development in vocational education and training 

6.      Shen Zhang, Yvonne Wood, Steven Parker ‘FLNW#10 The Unconference Format (video no longer available)  

7.       FLNW 06 - Professional Development Space of the Future (video no longer available)

Monday, October 02, 2006

Future of Learning in a Networked World - Reflections

OK. It’s time to get this down before the thoughts float away in time. People who experienced the whole 2 weeks of the roadshow may even forgotten I was there! But I was there for the first five days in Dunedin and Christchurch. I wonder if what I think and feel now might be different if I’d been part of the whole event….

As Konrad hinted, this was one of the more significant experiences of my life. Not something that I could or would want to forget. A pressure cooker of learning, thinking and relating. I find my thoughts about it all are more about process than content. I can’t tell you what extra knowledge I gained in the sense of hard facts or artefacts or new skills. That’s something of a disappointment actually as I had hoped to sit down quietly in a corner and grill Sean, or Leigh, or Stephen et al. But it just wasn’t like that. I think about how it was, what it was, what we did, what was said, who I spoke to……

It was exhilarating and exhausting (as I think everyone found) – even for those 5 days. So much information was relentlessly taken in, shared, and recycled or created as audio, text, photos, video. Others have written about it taking ages before it all finds its place in the overall – I know it will be like that. But I’ve already had the chance to run a kind of debrief session with some interested colleagues in a workshop back home. After outlining what it was and how it worked I asked the 12 or so present whether they would like to take part in that kind of professional development event and most were extremely amenable to the idea so I think the idea has legs. Not only for larger groups geographically dispersed, but small groups from the same location or workteam.

One of the more challenging aspects for me was to have to surrender myself to the group totally for all my waking hours, and in the case of the Marae, sleeping hours as well! Stephen’s initial comments about groups v networks, and subsequent discussion from others, are all the more interesting in this context. I came prepared to do that – surrender to the group – and consequently found myself feeling much closer to people within days. So for me it was not just an intellectual exercise of processing ideas and discussion, but about managing personal relationships. None of this was hard per se. It’s just that there was so much of it! Relentless as I said. And as a group travelling together in real as opposed to virtual space, I don’t just function as a head or a brain as I might be able to do online. Online there is also personal stuff of course, but it takes longer, and you have a choice about to whether to explore that side of a relationship with someone.

Though I was there for only 5 days I frequently heard, and have since read, how people needed more time and space to process what was happening. We were in a totally networked environment, even when we were ‘decapitated’ with no Net connection. No break for personal grounding. And I hear everyday how people are busy. Too busy. So networking of any kind 24/7 is too much. OK. This was an experiment and we were learning as we went, but next time round I’d be suggesting allotted times for

  • Working with specific others in the group (though many made this happen anyway)

  • Thinking time for processing, creating, and uploading

I guess this is stating the obvious really, but it’s now down on record. I think what I’m trying to say is that we need to be able to model how living the life of a networked knowledge worker/educator can be managed in such a way that there is equilibrium with other parts of your life. That it’s not just constant cognition and personal media bombardment.

Leigh -  for all the driving you did before we all arrived in Dunedin – a huge thank you. You have proved that such things are possible. To everyone else who was in Dunedin and ChCh physically or virtually, thank you for a smorgasbord of media, stimulation, and good vibes.

And is this still the best one stop shop to go to get as much of what was produced as possible? (It’s still pretty daunting for the uninitiated BTW. Will there be a book/CD/DVD?

If you’re interested a few other thoughts HERE

Thursday, September 21, 2006

FLNW Day 2

Invite a group of elearning experts to gather in one place to take part in an unconference on the Future of Learning in a Networked World and the rest will take care of itself. Konrad Globowski, Teemu Leinonen, Barbara Dieu and I spent several hours wandering around Dunedin yesterday discussing what might happen at such event. We questioned each other about why we had been invited, and how we might present ourselves and our work at such an unstructured event. There was a level of uncertainty at how one might ‘present’, or not present, but the conversation naturally turned to many of the issues that resulted in the need for this kind of event. In essence it is to present an alternative model to the stand and deliver model of the typical conference, and that typifies so much teacher methodology in classrooms. With a new breed of technological tools available that encourage personal publishing and collaborative learning among groups of connected learners it is timely to offer another way of offering professional development that more closely mirrors what might be regarded as better practice for teaching in a networked world. Fragments of the conversation as we walked included: Konrad: the creative aspect is key. Blogs, wikis, repositories for self-created media like YouTube and Odeo offer free publishing and storage of student work that can be used for self-expression, connecting with like-minded students, and even assignments set by imaginative teachers, and that engage students in ways that traditional text based or rote learning may not. The urge to create and make sense of the world through self-expression in various media is a natural human urge and not typically found in average courses. (I didn’t have one art lesson in my entire school life.) Teemu: the railway is a symbol of how connection was expressed in previous eras. In particular, the grandeur of the Dunedin railway station is indicative of its importance at the time. These days connections via the Net join more people across time and space than railways ever could. Later in the day the entire unconference gang gathered at a Maori marae. Caroline bemoaned the reduced importance of physical place in the new networked world. She wanted her children to feel grounded and know where they come from. I suggested that this notion of place has indeed been reduced in importance, and had been counter balanced with the ability to know people far away from your neighbourhood – people who you perhaps had more in common with than the people who lived next door. The concept of virtual place is now a reality, and rather than detract from my sense of being grounded in my home location, my attachment and enjoyment of home has been enriched by global connections made possible by the Internet. “Home is the where the Internet is.” Teemu : it was only when he realised that he could use them to communicate with people elsewhere that he became interested in them. This initial intrigue has resulted in him taking a path where he has developed a sytem of communication between a mobile phone and wikipedia. Using this system you can ask for wikipedia for an entry on a particular topic and it will call you back and read back the entry on your queried topic. Konrad wanted to do his Ph D on the role of blogging in forming communities for year 8 students. When he presented his proposal to his review committee they asked what previous research had been done on this topic. Of course there is none (because it is a new field) and they were consequently not keen to approve his topic. Such courses of higher study are normally assumed to be based on the work of other scholars, and approved on that basis. This is another example of how new tools and approaches (blogging for example) are challenging accepted practice in education. The educational world is now a place where knowledge is being created and distributed via egalitarian networks without a role for the traditional gatekeepers. Published academics are no longer the people you would seek out if you wanted information on most recent good practice in elearning. So before this unconference had begun, the conversations had already covered: 
  • The importance of creativity and personal publishing tools in the new and connected world 
  • The importance of the Internet as tool of connection between people 
  • The role of the mobile phone as a tool of inquiry and information retrieval 
  • Changes in how we view the concept of place 
  • The challenge to education presented by distributed knowledge sharing networks 

The learning and discussion on the future of learning had begun in earnest without a single presentation!

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