My first experience as an online facilitator

Facilitator and collaborative learning

As an online facilitator I really enjoyed putting together the power point presentation for the Wimba session. When I started preparing for the live wimba session there were a lot of uncertainties dwelling in my mind concerning preparing the right material. The first thing I did was to review the “pdf” Wimba resource guide online. Reviewing the guide helped me to understand some basic things about the Wimba tools. After reviewing the guide and logging into the practice Wimba session, I felt somewhat comfortable with using the Wimba tools. As the week progressed I felt the need to visit the Wimba practice room to review my power point presentation one last time, after that time it was do or die. Three things that were very successful for me was the reviewing the “pdf Wimba resource guide, taking time to practice or to become familiar with the Wimba tools and presetting the power point presentation for the live session.

My experience with working with the asynchronous activities or the discussion questions was somewhat surprising to me. I started out logging in three times a day, once in the morning, next at mid day and again in the evening to check for new posting. The surprise was that it did not take up as much time as I thought it would. I really think this worked out well for me even though I must say it did require me to be more conscious of my time management skills.

Overall the experience was rewarding and my perspective on the online facilitator has changed somewhat. The main reason for the slight change is because I now know from this one experience that to facilitate online is a two way street. If you have supportive classmates and your instructor is assessable you cannot go wrong. I mean you can consider the experience successful because everyone is learning together. The one important thing I will keep in mind is that collaboration is necessary for the online facilitation experience to be truly successful.