On to Week 3                                                                                                                                                              Week 2 Live chat summary

Summary of week 2

The discussions this week brought out the fact that the first week is crucial for newbies in an online session like EVO; either they stick with us or decide that this is not for them, we try to ensure that everybody feels welcomed and that we'll give the type of support they need to succeed. It is all about creating an inviting atmosphere and showing that yes, the beginning is daunting, but worth a try! Something that has  worked in the past is mentoring.

Suggestion: If we realize somebody is lost, why not try to partner them up with a more experienced participant. 

Thinking about the technical part, it was agreed that a FAQ page and tutorials that can be referred to are important - tools recommended for this were Jing  and screencast-o-matic    with some people preferring videos and others screenshots - not forgetting that a judicial link to an already existing tutorial can do the job.

There were discussions about announcing the time of meetings using timeanddate for the participants to be able to find their local time easily.   

"Good presentations, activities/assignments and properly cultivated peer-to-peer interaction seems to  oil the wheels for  social learning and momentum."

Tagging with a week by week tag allows late comers to post their productions in a findable place

Some people took the opportunity to test run the Google+ private community

The webheads Blackboard collaborate room is available to reserve for online meetings (thanks to Learning Times.com)

                    see week 1 live chat :  Directions are in Week 1 here: http://evo-training.pbworks.com/Week1

and this week the test run of a Google live streamed video hangout, with chats in three places

Have you decided on your spaces?

• a page with the session outline (which you are building on the private mods only wiki  which will become the Call for Participation and will remain available)
• a space for discussions.    
• a space with:
•      the session outline, 
•     instructions for joining  your  group  
•     the weekly syllabus with activities
•      a tutorial page
•      FAQ page 
•      a meet the moderators team page
•      a simple way for participants to introduce themselves and a space to aggregate all the profiles with photos
•      a space for participants to post their production
•      the benchmarks for each week as a checklist for participants
• Have you created a logo for your session ?
• Will you have a unique hashtag for your session?

 On to week 3                                                                                                                                                                        Week 2 live chat summary