Internet notebook about my work: deep listening to facilitate positive change

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Tuesday 29 October 2013

Learning pathways

Frogleaps is now a few months on line. We are analyzing the behavior of the users of the two courses on frogleaps. Maybe not surprisingly the multiple choice questions on the strategic communication course are frequently answered by most visitors and users. So this weekend we also uploaded such questions in the various topics of the storytelling course. 


Both courses end with an opportunity “to do it yourself”. To make these “do it yourself” key subjects more attractive we added tools to help users with developing a communication strategy or writing a story. Some of these tools provide instructions for individual use. Other tools provide instructions to develop steps jointly with colleagues or partners. In that case the advantage is that users in those cases have to explain parts of the theory to their colleagues and or partners and will in this way enhance their own individual learning. Then there is the blog to update the content of the courses. This leads to the follwoing learning pathways:         
  1. Reading through the course in a linear way and updating your knowledge by occasionally looking at the blog
  2.  Following the blog and occasionally check the content of the theory that is referred to in the blog
  3. Surfing through the key subjects and tasting the content by doing the multiple choice questions
  4. Starting with the “do it yourself” subject and using the tools to learn and occasionally go back to the theory explained in the previous key-subjects
  5. Using the group learning tools to enhance your own learning, by introducing the exercises to colleagues and partners
  6. Using the tools in your own Communication training workshops.
      The individual linear learning pathway of reading through the parts or the whole course may only be done by some users. Therefore we thought to suplement this learning pathway by a route to taste the content through multiple choice questions, and an opportunity for individual and for group learning by adding tools to be used with colleagues and partners. 

      Most of the tools we have tested ourselves in training workshops or during university lectures. The students of the Klagenfurt University MSc  Course on Protected Area Management were thrilled to discover how useful the stakeholder analysis tool was. “We now really understand the importance of researching stakeholders in advance, the theory we got never really gave us the insights that you have to look for those stakeholders that can become your partners”, was one of their comments.

In a workshop with local communities in Sierra Leone, we used some of
the storytelling tools to let participants dream up a change strategy for
coastal management. In a workshop in Jordan we used some storytelling
tools to help birdlife partners from the region flash out success stories that
could be used as supportive testimonials in a campaign to mainstream the
issue of migrating soaring birds into various sectors. 
Some CEC members shared already their tools they thought could add
value: recently Suzana Padua from Brazil send us her tool to do a
simulation game.

      We very much look forward on feedback from users about the different learning pathways and how we can improve them. We also like to hear from users about their experience using the tools. Please feel free to comment below or to write a blog article! 

Wednesday 9 October 2013

We are finding infinity

We are finding a future based on infinite resources. Here is our story over the past 3 years. We are on an adventure around the globe to inspire people to see the beauty, logical and inevitability of powering the world using only renewable energy and making this place self sufficient. This is a teaser highlighting what we have been doing and where we are heading, from throwing solar powered parties, to road tripping on vegetable oil and meeting up with some of the most innovative minds on the planet, we are searching for the solutions to make it all happen. We stay at the coolest hotels in the world, Design Hotels and help them reduce their impact as we go. Follow our journey.