Every time I get to work with the ShapingEDU community, I’m blown away by the creativity and passion of the team at ASU to positively “shape the future of learning in the digital age” as they say.
Even in a world of remote meetings, ShapingEDU walks the talk to convene for meaningful work driven by the community, which means it’s then carried on afterward?
So, what best practices can be transferred to YOUR organization?
For highly engaged virtual or in-person events, let participants guide content. This was done through crowd-sourcing then voting on nine wicked problems facing education in the weeks leading up to the Unconference.
Minimize talking at, maximize talking with. Most of the three days was spent in working groups focused on the content participants upvoted. There was a framing plenary panel, then off folks went to share their insights and cross-pollinate ideas.
Provide some structure. These hours-long working groups were guided by community members who volunteered to facilitate them ahead of time, who had knowledge, expertise, and the ability to step back to let the group do the work when it made sense. Each had their own zoom meeting, and participants were encouraged to work together across Slack.
Infuse creativity and play. The opening reception was a ridiculously well-curated Wicked Mystery Party where participants discovered there were self-guided and team-oriented mysteries to solve by talking with characters in different breakouts, exploring clues in different settings online, and working together. Not to mention a graphic recording “ghost” who floated around to capture snippets of the process and offer sometimes helpful hints.
The base map for the Wicked Mystery Party opening reception. Participants could click on yellow buttons to explore different rooms, looking for clues!
Finally, each day was facilitated with reconvening the groups to share ideas and look for connections, patterns, and insights together. These report outs were graphically recorded in real-time and reflected back to the participants visually and verbally for comprehension, memory boosting, and looking for new ideas together.
Cheers ShapingEDU – you all are truly remarkable and I’m proud to be part of the community!
Once again, thank you from my heart and soul for your support, great senses of humor, brilliant minds, collaboration and what you're each doing to make the world a better place.
Cheers,
Where in the Virtual World is ConverSketch?
ASU ShapingEDU Unconference: As you may have read above, the Unconference is a lively event. This year, we created quite a few materials ahead of time, including this explainer video on what Black Swan Events are and why we should care!
Communication and Symbioses Workshop: I’m in the midst of graphic facilitating a two-day workshop for a team of researchers exploring connections between microbial symbioses and signaling and communication.
