Over breakfast today in Bonn, where I’m doing some work this week, my friend Ulf and I were talking about where we have seen positive change take place.  (Check out his cool work with Science-Connects.) We shared stories about how things seem to work better from the ground up. Where people with passion and ownship make things happen, building on assets and in spite of barriers. Girls and women are certainly catalysts for this in many parts of the world. Take a look at this data from The Girl Effect fact sheet (pdf).

• When a girl in the developing world receives seven or more years of education, she marries four years later and has 2.2 fewer children. (United Nations Population Fund, State of World Population 1990.)
• An extra year of primary school boosts girls’ eventual wages by 10 to 20 percent. An extra year of secondary school: 15 to 25 percent. (George Psacharopoulos and Harry Anthony Patrinos, “Returns to Investment in Education: A Further Update,” Policy Research Working Paper 2881[Washington, D.C.: World Bank, 2002].)
• Research in developing countries has shown a consistent relationship between better infant and child health and higher levels of schooling among mothers. (George T. Bicego and J. Ties Boerma, “Maternal Education and Child Survival: A Comparative Study of Survey Data from 17 Countries,” Social Science
  and Medicine 36 (9) [May 1993]: 1207–27.)
• When women and girls earn income, they reinvest 90 percent of it into their families, as compared to only 30 to 40 percent for a man. (Phil Borges, with foreword by Madeleine Albright, Women Empowered: Inspiring Change in the Emerging World [New York: Rizzoli, 2007], 13.)

Since I was in Israel and Palestine last month, I have been struggling on how to write about my experience in a way that is not about judgement, but about reflecting what I saw. The tyranny of person over person is heartbreaking, regardless of the reasons and justifications we create. But from what I saw and learned about, women and children are victims as Israel and Palestine continue without a solution for sustainable peace. The statistics around maternal and child health paint a compelling picture that war, occupation, and the patterns that trigger them are bad for women and children. High levels of maternal depression correlate with poor child nutrition. Raising rates of stunting in children from persistent malnourishment (low nutrition and poor nutrition) are staggering. Cultural challenges that resist healthy patterns of breast feeding and trigger increased poor child health and adult obesity and heart disease in Palestinians.

Where is the hope for something better? For basic human rights of food, shelter, clothing, clean food and water and yes, even peace?

It is with the women.

The women of Palestine and Israel, both, who build bridges across the divides were the most compelling points of light I experienced amongst the bleakness that presented itself. At the conference I was attending, I met a midwife who works for the Jazoor Foundation for Health and Social Development who gave me one of the few moments of light and hope I felt during my visit. She was passionate about her profession of helping women have healthier babies. She was passionate about teaching others to be midwives, even amongst professional disdain from other health care professionals. (US midwives will remember the time when they were dismissed by doctors, and are now an important part of the maternal child health system.) Her brains, her heart, her attitude radiated light. She worked with other amazing, passionate advocates for health, social development and peace in the organization, led by another brilliant, passionate woman. (I’m kicking myself for not having her name handy, but it is on my home computer and I’m on the road!)

Women who are catalyzing positive change.

I would name this radiant midwife, and share a short video we made of her, but I have not asked her permission. I’ll try and remmber to do that when I get home to let you experience a bit of her light.

So the message of The Girl Effect site resonated with me this morning. Wherever we work - in businesses, education, non profit, or independent spirits in the world, what are we doing to foster this light in girls and women? Because so far, they are the best bet I can see for making positive change in the world. By no means am I dismissing boys. But girls are so often dismissed, when they may be the best chance we’ve got.

(A small suggestion to the Girl Effect folks. Your about page is in flash, making it hard to copy and share the stats. Yes, I know I can download the data, but that is one more step. Plus data is still locked in a PDF. For strong virality, making it simpler and easier may be more important than making it slick. )

There are two things I appreciate about Gillian’s improvisational response to a challenge. One, it is creative. Two, in engages and involves everyone in the room in the solution. The “problem” isn’t just the facilitators’. It is the challenge and operating conditions of the group.

Where we are able to give over both control AND responsibility, I find we get greater engagement.

Edit: a few hours later, I find this picture of CIFOR’s annual meeting Open Space Marketplace — one of the more innovative ones that I’ve seen!

At the end of his comments, Olbermann said:

This is the second time in ten days I find myself concluding by turning to, of all things, the closing plea for mercy by Clarence Darrow in a murder trial.

But what he said, fits what is really at the heart of this:

“I was reading last night of the aspiration of the old Persian poet, Omar-Khayyam,” he told the judge. It appealed to me as the highest that I can vision. I wish it was in my heart, and I wish it was in the hearts of all: So I be written in the Book of Love; I do not care about that Book above. Erase my name, or write it as you will, So I be written in the Book of Love.”

Edited Later: See also this video from the weekend march in Seattle from Ashley and Thomas
http://vimeo.com/2259354. Again, the theme is Love.

With a lot of self-effacing charm, James Clay brings us this delightful video: Are you on Twitter?. I’m not sure this will increase your comprehension of the tool if you are new, but if you are already on, you’ll probably appreciate the humor. But it brings up the issue of adopting a new technology because it is “cool.” Take a look at the video, then I’ll continue below…

There are early adopters who will try anything. The second wave come from people who learn about a tool from a friend who has recommended it or hear about it and sense it is the new cool thing. There is temptation to try because of the coolness factor. That can be a pro or a con. It can tip us off to something useful. Or it can lead to “yet another thing to attend to.”

How do YOU tell the difference?

Facilitation - Evaluation - Beyond the Edge - Viv McWaters
Improv principles for facilitators in haiku

Accept offers, say
Yes! And… be open to the
ideas of others.

Be average. Be
obvious - and then see how
you soar, and excel!

Working with another?
Look after your partner well,
And you’ll both look good.

Just jump in. Go on.
Start anywhere. Begin
and be surprised.

Do something - move your
body. Listen, observe and
trust yourself. Go on!

Made a mistake? Bow…
And then try something else new.
It’s the only way.

What if? What if? What…
Just let go of the what ifs
And be present too.

Even though I’m not writing much, I am present with you in this universe! Till later…

You won’t want to miss the online sessions this week. Nancy White is our scheduled guest. We have two Elluminate discussions (both sessions can be accessed via this link): 11 am CST (see time zone conversions) and 7 pm CST (see time zone conversions).

Christy Tucker took some great notes, and the recording will be up later. Thanks, Christy. I agree that the brainstorming at the end was really good. I am kicking myself for not saving a set of the annotated slides, which included the brainstorm. Stephen, are they available? In the meantime, here are the unannotated slides plus the chat. (Connectivism Chat #1) As I mentioned at the end of the hour, there were TONS of rich, un-mined veins in the chat.

The chairs Christy talks about are on the first slide. After everyone was in, they all had names under them, pictures of coffee and food and all sorts of comments. It was a very convivial group!

Photo: Creative commons on Flickr by the infatuated

Edited Nov 6: A few more links related to this post

• The image of our brainstorming at the end of session one is here. Thanks to Bob Bell.
• Diego Leal’s Notes
• Jenny’s reflection on my teaching behaviors, one of the nicest things I’ve ever read about myself and now I have to live up to it! Thanks, Jenny. I’m still smiling.
• The recordings, session 1 and session 2

I normally don’t write about politics here but today isn’t normal.

There are two lessons that strike me, aside from the tide-turning change that this election may bring both the US and the network of other countries we are inevitably connected to.

1. In a complex world, the boundaries of domains, of themes of focus, are inevitably interrupted by the fact that boundaries shift and blur. So while a business person might desire to refrain from politics on his or her blog (See Lee LeFever’s post a while back), politics is a part of life, and life is a part of business. So the question is, how do we decide in our social media participation where and how to draw boundaries that are often just constructs. Life is messy.
2. Hope is infectious and I’m glad. I’ll carry that hope into my own personal action and support for my country’s’ leaders and citizens of the world to make the world better. I feel that infection rolling across my networks. I’m also aware that my networks are more politically homogeneous than the world, and that there are others today who may feel a loss of hope. They deserve hope too, so I appreciated Obama’s inclusiveness and seriousness about that in his acceptance speech. It is a theme that winds deeply back into my work, beyond any politics.

So in the end, a post about politics, something I don’t normally write about, is also embedded in the work of connection, communication, community and change. As I travel overseas as an American in the last months, everyone asked me about the election. It gave them hope and, I sensed, some reason to re-embrace their relationship with America. I am imagining my friends in Kenya, who have been through a horrible time with their own elections, and can envision them dancing in the streets like many have in cities across the US - a newfound sense of connection.

I can’t deny it. I am waking up today with hope. May this next era be an era of hard work. More of a culture of love than of war. An era of hope in a time of huge challenges.

From Mitten:

Mixtape from http://favtape.com/artist/ok go

Photos:

• creative commons on Flickr from Maruko

• Touch Drawing from Deborah Koff-Chapin

Participants in the Facilitating Online Communties course have come together to coordinate an online mini conference. Below are the range of events scheduled so far. Keep an eye on the conference wiki for up to the minute details. See you there!

A mini conference for Facilitating Online

From Facilitating online communities
Date: 2 - 9 November 2008
All times are in Coordinated Universal Time (UTC) unless stated otherwise. Use this time convertor to work out your times.

2-9Nov Community Leadership Development

Title: Community Leadership Development - review and feedback

Date: online discussion

Duration: throughout the conference period

Facilitators: Valerie Taylor with guests and friends

Venue: blog posts, discussion page threads

Description: Community Leadership Development - online, open education and skills development for individuals and groups working with community-based organizations to provide leadership training, needs assessment and planning, coordination and management of projects to benefit the community.

As Community Leadership Development is a new course modeled on FOC08 and CCK08, participants in the FOC08 Mini Conferences are uniquely qualified to provide input, feedback and suggestions.

Throughout the Mini Conference, questions about the content and the process for the course will be posted for review and comment. Summaries and links to contributions will be posted each day.

Questions, offers of collaboration welcome.

2-9Nov Managing Multimembership in Social Networks

Title: SCoPE seminar discussion: Managing Multimembership in Social Networks: Oct 27-Nov 9, 2008

Facilitators: Bronwyn Stuckey, Jeffrey Keefer, Sue Wolff, Sylvia Currie

Description: How do you track and keep up with blog conversations? How do you manage your time as you engage in social networks? What are our limits as we integrate social learning into our work environments? When you do find yourself becoming disconnected from your networks and organized activities, how do you return to the fray? As facilitators how do you manage multimembership for your participants?

Many of us confess to fumbling along and we engage in multiple networks. Yet, many networks are essential for the projects, sectors and people that we work with, and for staying abreast of hot issues. Multi-membership and multi-platform overload is becoming a BIG challenge!

During this 2-week discussion we invite you to share tips for managing participation in social networks. This seminar is organized as part of the Facilitating Online Communities course mini-conference. There are many ways to participate! Take our survey, leave a Voice Thread, and join the asynchronous discussion.

Venue: SCoPE is an open, online community supported by BCcampus and hosted by Simon Fraser University. Membership is free and open to the public and our discussions are facilitated by volunteers. Access the seminar discussion directly.

Planning for the event: A record of our planning steps is on a subsequent wiki page: /multimembership

5Nov-7pm The Role of an Online Facilitator

Date: 7pm on Wednesday 5th November UTC (8am on Thursday 6th NovemberNZ DST) Check the time in your zone.

Duration: approximately 1 hour

Facilitator: Vida Thompson

Venue: Skype (contact skype user: vidathompson in advance to join this session)

Description I recorded an interview with a Community Facilitator here in Alexandra, Central Otago, New Zealand. For the mini conference I would like participants to listen to the inteview and then discuss their perception of the role of an online facilitator and how that compares to the role of a face to-face community facilitator. This discussion will be held on skype on Wednesday 5th November at 7pm UTC. (Contact skype user: vidathompson in advance to join this session).

All interested people are welcome to attend. It would be good if participants could listen to the interview before the event. Note: The interview does take a while to start as I edited the beginning out.

Please contact Vida Thompson in skype prior to the event so you can be included in the event when it starts (contact skype user: vidathompson or by e-mail address:vidat@tekotago.ac.nz) There is a limit of 9 participants who can talk but no limit to the chat contributions.

5Nov 9pm Interview About Second Life in Second Life

Title: About Second Life

Date: Wednesday 05 Nov UTC at 9.00pm (Thursday 06 Nov 10.00 am New Zealand Time)

Duration: 30 Minutes

Facilitator: Grant Comber (aka Avatar: Clinty Inglewood)

Venue: Explorer Island in Second Life

How to get there? Click on this SLurl Link and then click on the Teleport Now button to zoom to Explorer Island. The Second Life Grid coordinates for the Venue are 195,208,22 (PG) Your Host Clinty Inglewood will meet you.

Reminder: Min computer specs - RAM: 500mb (preferably 1 Gig) Chip speed: 800 MHz Pentium III or better, Screen 1024×768 pixels Internet Connection: Cable/DSL Microphone/headset needed for Chatting

Description:An interview between newbie Grant Comber (Clinty Inglewood) and seasoned Second Life user Harold Atkinson (Hat Carter). General questions on the use of Second Life and sharing of unique experiences. Opportunity for all avatars in FOC to gain some insight into using Second Life especially those who are newbies like Grant!

So if you want to philosophize, go didactic on us or just talk some technical turkey issues please pop in for this casual interview.

My thanks to our guest Harold Atkinson who is a fellow teaching colleague of mine with much Second Life experience. See you there! Signing Off: Clinty Inglewood

6Nov-8am Stigmergic Collaboration: The Evolution of Group Work

Facilitated by: Daryl Cook with guest Dr. Mark Elliott.

Mark completed a PhD in 2007 that developed theoretical frameworks for collective activity and mass collaboration in conjunction with a number of real-world projects and now runs a consultancy that provides services surrounding online collaboration and social media / web2.0. In our meeting, Mark will assist us to explore:

• Stigmergic collaboration as a means of explaining how co-ordination is achieved in ad hoc, massively scaled collaborative contexts (i.e. Wikis)
• How we can, as facilitators, use Wikis to collaborate, share and learn
• His experiences from the Future Melbourne project — the world’s first, wiki-based, collaborative city plan.

The one hour session, will include a very brief presentation, but will mostly be informal and conversational. Definitely no Powerpoint.

Please join us!

DATE: Thursday 6th November 2008 at 7PM EST or check the time in your time zone.

VENUE: Join this online event at the Elluminate Meeting Room

Beforehand, please ensure that you computer is ready to use the web conferencing software (Elluminate).

RSVP: daryl.cook@gmail.com

ENQUIRIES: For any enquiries and/or for any assistance with Elluminate, do not hesitate to contact me.

6 Nov-10pm International Online Collaboration Group meets FOC08

Title International Online Collaboration Group

• Date and Duration - UTC Thursday 6 November 10pm-11pm UTC (Friday 7 November 9am – 10am East Australia time)
• Facilitators: Kerry Trabinger (CIT Australia) and Leigh
• Description

This is a FANTASTIC opportunity for the group to meet with teachers who are currently completing a subject called Facilitating Learning Online in Australia. Come and discuss your experiences. Topics will include: - Introductions (where are you from and what area are you teaching in) - Virtual Classrooms - Do you like this platform? Will you use it with your students? Why or Why not? Any tips on using these platforms. - Time Management - How does your Institute allocate time for online delivery? Is it the same as for face to face? - Marketing - how can you get students or participants to join in an online dicussion or virtual classroom session? PLUS you have a chance to try a different virtual classroom platform.

• Venue - VET VIRTUAL (a virtual classroom used in Australia VET Sector - www.vetvirtual.com)

6Nov-1030pm TLC (Think, Learn & Create) Using Mind Maps

Title: TLC Using Mind Maps (TLC - Think, Learn & Create) - Online Discussion, followed by Presentation, - Friday 7 Nov 2008 11.30 am - 12noon NZ DST (10.30 pm - 11 pm Thursday 6 Nov UTC)

Facilitators: Kay Lewis and Elaine Dittert

Description:

• Have you had difficulty keeping up with the ‘overload of information’ during this course?
• Got confused or lost by trying to view all the discussion threads?
• Have you jotted down some thoughts and ideas you’ve read and heard but by the time you’re ready to go over your notes they make no sense?

If this sounds like you, this 30 minute session may be just what you need. It is designed to give you some pointers to help you gather and organise large amounts of data and provide a clear overview, analyse your thoughts, identify problem solving ideas and generate more ideas with clarity, efficiency and accuracy.

We plan to have one special guest speaker:

• Jennifer Goddard, BBus (Admin), Master of Entrepreneurship and Innovation, Master Trainer in Buzan Advanced Learning Techniques, inspirational Director of the Buzan Centre in Australia and New Zealand and co-founder of Mindwerx International. OR
• Jennie Vickers, Buzan Licensed Instructor (senior advanced coach), Masters of Management, Diploma in Business Administration (University of Auckland), BA Law (Honours). Jennie is also an Alumni of the Leadership NZ Programme.

Venue: From your feedback in the discussion here [1], we will use 24/7 Meeting Room (Elluminate) or Skype to host the presentation.

7Nov-4PM EST Storytelling

Title: Storytelling

Date: November 7, 2008 at 4PM EST or check the time in your time zone.

Duration: 60 minutes ?

Facilitators:

• See list

Venue:

• Join the event on WiZiQ
• Join the event on Connecting Online.

Description:

• Do you think of stories when you look at a photo, a video, or listen to music? Does the topic interest you as a tool for instruction and learning or are you just curious? In any case, for whatever reason you may have, you are invited to join this storytelling mini conference.

• We will have a live storytelling event on WiZiQ or Elluminate. Please refer to the main page of Connecting Online for further discussions on the topic.

Further Information

• Storytelling Mini Conference

• Please add your name to the list and/or ask questions here.

8Nov-Midnight Heart2Heart Online

Title: Heart2Heart Online

Date: Tentatively Saturday, November 8, 2008 00:00 UTC Time

Duration: 90 minutes

Venue: TBA (Skype, Elluminate Meeting Room or WiZiQ)

Group Size: Maximum of 8 people

Facilitator: Greg Barcelon assisted by partner Ivy (guest)
A place where we can simply be ourselves… sharing ourselves at a deeper level without the fear of condemnation, unsolicited advice, interruption or being judged.

Traditionally we got this deep level of connectedness with our true selves, and assist others in doing the same, from our families. But, with many people experiencing difficulties in their family life today, we need communities that can become “Schola Amoris,” a School of Love, in which all learn to first of all accept themselves as they are, and then in a greater way accept others unconditionally – the greatest yearning we collectively have.
More about it here.

TBA Connecting Online in Developing Countries

Connecting Online in Developing Countries

Title: Connecting Online in Developing Countries

Date: Saturday November 8, 2008 at: See your time zone, please.

Duration: 60 min?

Faciliatator: Joy Zhao & guest speakers

Venue: WiZi or 24/7 Meeting Room

Description: to be updated…

–
Posted By Leigh Blackall to Facilitating Online Communities at 11/05/2008 10:08:00 AM

From a work perspective, it is wonderful to see how creatively people are using social media to encourage participation and do election observing. As someone who works internationally, election observers are an important role. Yet we’ve never had them in the US. And we HAVE had problems. So it is gratifying to see grass roots reporting. I’m not sure how it would hold up in court, but check out Twitter Vote Report » See it in action, and the Votereport Twitter stream.

So once again, if you are a registered US voter and you haven’t done it yet, GO VOTE!

Election Protection Resources

If you’re experiencing difficulty voting and would like to request assistance from the Election Protection Coalition, contact 1-866-OUR-VOTE or 1-888-VE-Y-VOTA.

Bronwyn StuckeyJeffrey KeeferSue WolffSylvia Currie

Take a look!

SCoPE: Seminars: Managing Multimembership in Social Networks: Oct 27-Nov 9, 2008
How do you track and keep up with blog conversations? How do you manage your time as you engage in social networks? What are our limits as we integrate social learning into our work environments? When you do find yourself becoming disconnected from your networks and organized activities, how do you return to the fray? As facilitators how do you manage multimembership for your participants?

Many of us confess to fumbling along and we engage in multiple networks. Yet, many networks are essential for the projects, sectors and people that we work with, and for staying abreast of hot issues. Multi-membership and multi-platform overload is becoming a BIG challenge!

During this 2-week discussion we invite you to share tips for managing participation in social networks. This seminar is organized as part of the Facilitating Online Communities course mini-conference. .

Schedule:

* Throughout October, 6 questions about multimembership (survey)
* Week one: Oct 27-31 Collect stories (Voice Thread)
* Week two: Nov 1-8 Discussion here with summaries in the SCoPE wiki

We want to see how much we can learn together by maximizing your attention, so jump in anywhere with your tips and tales.

The seminar will officially unfold beginning October 27th. There are at least three ways to participate.

1. During the first week, we will focus on collecting your stories and tips using the Voice Thread. Scroll down below, and just click on the arrow in the middle or the faces around it to listen. Click on “Comment” to add your own tips. You have your choice of recording your voice or typing short comment. (Don’t worry, Voice Thread lets you start over if you don’t like your first take.)
2. You can still take our multimembership survey. Later in the week, we will be posting the results on the SCoPE wiki.
3. Threaded discussion will take place mostly in the second week (Nov. 1-8), but, you are welcome to start with a short introduction and question or comment now too.