Online facilitating :mini event

As I had to facilitate a mini online event for my Online Facilitating Course, I had to think about what I could present to an audience.

I have noticed that some people find it hard to keep stay in touch with what is new due to their lack of method in gathering infos. The Internet is a huge space full of good information (or not so good) and how can you know what is new? You obviously cannot look for info everywhere as it will waste a lot of time. Reading blogs is a good way to be kept in the loop but it is time consuming if you have to check them all online in order to see what has been written recently. I have even seen people keeping blog address in their browser’s bookmark and then go through them all one by one in a weekly basis.

I use RSS feed to stay in touch with the rest of the world, therefore I thought I could speak about it with the online community I am belonging to, which is the VPLD Community. (Virtual Professional and Leadership Development).

I spoke about it with my mentor, Rachel Roberts and asked her if it would be possible for me to facilitate a hot seat session during our next meeting which take place once a term. She kindly accepted and the date of 13th of July came up.

So now I have to plan my session per se.

Rachel has sent me a wonderful Common Craft video which would be a great start to the event. It is a very quick video in plain English (no jargon in it , therefore everybody can understand it ) which explains clearly what is a RSS feed. I think this video should be the start point of my presentation.

As I use Google Reader, I would like to show how I use it. I would like to point out how to subscribe to a blog and how to use the shortcut in Google Reader. As my main objective is for people to see how easy and practical a RSS Feed is, I want to keep everything short and sweet. I do not want people to feel intimidated.

I also would like to show the idea of a social bookmarking system. I use Diigo and I LOVE IT !!!! I will thus show to the group how powerful such a tool can be.

As I have to present from school and that the internet is not very reliable I would need to think of a plan B. I will make videos of everything I am planning to do just in case the internet is slow.

Because I am presenting a session to an inclose community I don;t need to advertise the event. If I were trying to attract more people I would need to think about how to advertise. It is actually quite useful that for my first time the event will happen in a define community and that Rachel has announced and advertised the presentation.

My next post will be after the mini event......until then, I will keep my fingers crossed :-)