Photo by Allie on Unsplash

Well, of course I have to do SOMETHING new when I can’t do any IB (International Baccalaureate) Face-to-Face workshops! Lucky for me, I was accepted to be trained as an online workshop facilitator.

One of our concerns as a Masters of Educational Technology cohort of online learners was how to build community. I am pleased that our third module of four in my IB training is on just that – community and communication. As the material is copyrighted, I am only sharing a brief quote from the workshop:

“Building a sense of community in an online workshop is an essential first step. Learners feel more comfortable, safer and at ease among a group of peers than with a group of strangers. Building a sense of team and community facilitates the transfer of ownership to the group and, as a consequence, a sense of accountability.”

I was SO excited to read this! Yes, SO EXCITED that I had to stop reading and start a blog about it. You may have read my frustration with some of my earlier online experiences, but this training shows how IB have developed their courses with intention. Two lines further into this module, and we were provided with an outside non-copyrighted source from the University of Waterloo on netiquette for online courses! University of Waterloo has always been a source of great remote learning, even back in the 80s when I was finishing my second degree and taking correspondence (yes, snail mail) courses from them.

Now, I cannot share the set of strategies they suggested because of copyright infringement, but I researched their suggestions and found some shareable resources like this one from E-Learning, one from Purdue University and another based on synchronous discussions from University of Waterloo!

They also talked about universal design and introduced it through this video:

They go on to talk about motivation, which tends to dwindle after the first week. They focus on how feedback is a positive enforcement to encourage motivation, and how small/short learning engagements also foster motivation.

Well, I have to start my first short learning engagement (small group reflection on a strategy to empower and engage online asynchronous participants in a community in 60 seconds or less each on FlipGrid). Hope you found this post helpful!