KS Workshop: Reflections after Teleconference #2

Today, while we are tuning towards the end of week 2 of our workshop, we are having our second set of teleconferences.

The suggested agenda was to go over the network mapping exercise (a main activity of the week where we discovered already 17 network maps!), as well as to start thinking about possible tools and methods to improve KS within those networks. We also invited participants to give some feedback on the first two weeks: What worked well, what could be improved, and what could we do individually to make most out of the event. Overall most participants emphasize that they “learn a lot” but admit at the same time that the amount of information to digest is tremendous, a feeling that many expressed already at the first week’s call. We also heard often that participants will try to find more time to dedicate to the course.

Some things that worked well for participants:

• The podcasts
• The network mapping exercise
• The possibility to read all across the discussions
• The possibility to get all posts through e-mail or RSS
• Moodle as a platform for the workshop
• The weekly teleconference calls
• Having fun
• The toolkit

Some things that could be improved:

• Have less different activities and discussions ongoing at the same time
• The amount of information is overwhelming
• Summarize more frequently
• Make the teleconference calls more dynamic
• Have something around gender specific tools
• Have more on low technology tools.

What can we do?
We decided for next week to invite participants to focus on Activity #3 where we try to split up in groups of interest and think about scanning and picking KS tools and methods that could be appropriate for the different topics, and also have a short experience in virtual team work. The suggested themes are based on our interactions of week 1, but participants can also create new discussion topics.

Looking forward to the next days of interactions…