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The Global Flipchart is IAF's quarterly magazine about the power of facilitation – made by members, for members. Contact the editorial team by email: globalflipchart@iaf-world.org

Global Flipchart #12

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June 2018

Learning online facilitation

By Irene Maweu

Africa is rapidly changing, and the time is coming when online facilitation will be the only mode of facilitation. Imagine a world where everyone will attend conferences and courses online, attain their degrees online, and embrace online learning as the continent’s norm rather than the exception.

For me, online facilitation is one of the most satisfying methods of knowledge delivery and engagement. It cannot really be compared to face-to-face facilitation. When facilitating face-to-face, it is easy to feel like the most powerful person in a room, because you can get the participants to do practically anything with a high engagement rate. I sometimes ask participants to contribute a small amount of money when they are late for a session - not too much, but enough to buy something that can be donated to the charity of their choice. This is different from online facilitation, where you still are the most powerful person in the room, but in a totally different way. You need to use your time wisely in order to fully achieve your outcomes.

I first got intrigued with online facilitation in 2010. I admired so many of my online facilitators, so I tried everything I could to become one. When I finally began e-tutoring, I discovered that I could change people's lives and this is what gave me my wings! Online facilitation is one of the most powerful tools we can have - it fully engages people beyond geography.

Effective facilitation is core to learning and teaching in online courses. Even more than in face-to-face settings, online lecturers and trainers need to undergo an essential shift in mindset: viewing ourselves as facilitators who engage with our students at emotional, social and intellectual levels rather than simply seeing ourselves as deliverers of knowledge. Online facilitation skills enable educators to engage students or participants in debate, group work and shared knowledge across a range of online conversational spaces. Trained online facilitators are also able to make good choices about the use of online communication when designing learning activities.

If you want to get into online facilitation, check out the Facilitating Online Course offered by the Centre for Innovation in Learning and Teaching at the University of Cape Town. When I participated in 2015, I was in a class with amazing students from all over Africa and some of the best online facilitators as well. Unlike the previous courses I had attended, this course does not have a face-to-face phase and I did not have a chance to meet the facilitators or participants physically. Nevertheless I learned everything about them from the activities and exercises provided, and later became one of the facilitators for this very course. Students are given an introduction to online facilitation and share resources and opportunities to develop the necessary skills to become an effective online facilitator.