Category: Virtual Teams

Categories
Information Virtual Teams

eXtension Virtual Learning Tops 70,000 in 2013

interactive bev guide at AFC

The total number of visits to eXtension virtual learning environments in Second Life for the 2013 year is 71,604. The Avatar Fitness Club continues to drive traffic to eXtension in Second Life, with more than 31,000 visits to the club since September 1. This venue offers a social environment for changing habits and maintaining weight loss through regular exercise and nutrition education.

New educational content includes a 3D representation of the famous “Rethink Your Drink” lesson, which will be familiar to all Family and Consumer colleagues; training on how to use the USDA SuperTracker website; and field trips to the University of Idaho Diabetes Living interactive restaurant, where visitors can experiment with menu choices to fit their eating plans. Collaboration is ongoing with Australian Jason Jarred, a fitness blogger, certified personal trainer and exercise physiology student, to bring mixed media live fitness classes to the venue. Click here to visit the Avatar Fitness Club to see what it has to offer!

Categories
Information Virtual Teams Webinars

JCEP Excellence in Teamwork Award to HorseQuest

The Joint Council of Extension Professionals has honored eXtension’s HorseQuest community of practice with its Excellence in Teamwork award. This honor, awarded annually, encourages and recognizes successful Extension team programs or projects that demonstrate effective performance and significant result impacts at community, area, state or multi-state levels.

Team members recognized and supporting the nomination included: Betsy Greene, University of Vermont; Kathy Anderson, University of Nebraska; Krishona Martinson, University of Minnesota; Christine Skelly, Michigan State University; Karen Waite, Michigan State University; and Elaine Bailey, University of Maryland.

The nomination noted: “The eXtension HorseQuest leadership team was instrumental in developing and sustaining both web content and the team of national experts, resulting in an innovative, educational resource. The website (www.extension.org/horses) provides a variety of methods and learning opportunities related to health, care, management, and training of horses. Website resources include: interactive learning lessons, webinars, frequently asked questions, basic information, and “Ask the Expert”. Through self guided learning lessons, horse enthusiasts can move at their desired pace, or, research the topics through the “best of the best” articles available on the site. Content is delivered through text, photos, videos, podcasts, flash applications, and interactive chats. The HorseQuest community of practice has led the way in providing unique educational opportunities to reach their clientele.”

Categories
Community Content Virtual Teams

Ever wondered how to form a community of practice?

If you are interested in forming a community of practice for eXtension the process is really straight forward and easy to do. The eXtension Community of Practice Handbook contains a reference sheet on forming a community of practice. This reference sheet walks you through a step by step process of forming a community.

The community of practice application and process can be completed and submitted at anytime a community has the documentation completed. Each application is reviewed by a review panel within 30 days of receiving the application. For more information about forming communities of practice or the application process contact Dr. Craig H. Wood, craig.wood@extension.org or call 859.323.8472.

Categories
Uncategorized Virtual Teams

How team members might accept change

In the “The Secret Language of Success: Using Body Language to Get What You Want” by Dr. David Lewis (1989), Dr. Lewis suggests you can determine how a person on your team views change by having them repaeta a simple phrase.

Dr Lewis recommends you get each of them to repeat the following 5 words out loud without thinking about it too much:

“We can’t do that here”

Listen carefully to which of the five words they stress – if its:

  1. We – they are worried about their Identity
  2. Can’t – they are worried about their beliefs and values
  3. Do – they are worried about their skills
  4. That – they are worried about their behavior
  5. Here – they are worried about the environment

It might be nonsense, they might laugh at you or you might just learn something important about one of your fellow team members!

You might give it a try!!!

Categories
Community Technology Virtual Teams

Establishing Trust is CRITICAL for effective Online Communication

An article in Science Daily states that, Establishing Trust Online Is Critical For Online Communication there conclusions were reported in a paper “Swift Trust in Virtual Teams”.

The authors, Starr Roxanne Hiltz and Naomi Rotter, argue that virtual team leaders and on-line teachers need to overcome the potential coldness of the electronic medium and suggest a number of tactics for building “Swift Trust” including:

  1. Creating the sense that the leader is present even though they can’t be seen.
  2. Establishing on-line dialogue early and quickly.
  3. Swiftly and constructively replying to all new users comments and issues.
  4. Recognising that the impression gained by users in the first week will have a major influence on future use.
  5. Using private emails rather than public forums to scold users who are struggling.
  6. These are useful techniques for virtual coaches and virtual team leaders seeking to create more effective virtually networked teams.
Categories
Development Virtual Teams

Collaborative Thinking

In William Issacs book on the “Dialogue and the art of thinking together” he introduces the Four-Player System originally developed by David Kantor. This is a very important technique for supporting real collaborative thinking in teams.

In any productive group thinking dialogue all four of the following roles should be in play:

Mover
Without Movers there is no direction
Opposer
Without Opposers there is no correction
Follower
Without Followers there is no completion
Bystander
Without Bystanders there is no perspective

The roles do not all need to be in play at the same time but need to have been played before the thinking concludes.

Categories
Content Virtual Teams

Virtual Team Ice Breaker

The Virtual Team Opportunity Iceberg is a very simple spreadsheet for letting you and your fellow team members instantly spot the potential for improvement in your teams. It’s not intended to be precise – a show of hands will do – but it can be a great team ice-breaker! Just answer these 3 simple questions individually and then aggregate the results for your team.

Q1. EFFECTIVENESS: Do our work teams mostly fulfil their potential?

Q2. SATISFACTION: Do we get as much satisfaction from our work teams as our social groups and voluntary teams?

Q3. TECHNOLOGY: Do virtual technologies noticeably improve our work teams performance?

Categories
Community Extension Virtual Teams

Monthly audio calls established for CoP core leadership

Monthly audio calls with all of the core leadership of the 8 pioneer communities of practice are established starting May 15th. The calls will be an hour in length and will be on the third Monday of every month beginning on May 15th. Time will be 2 PM (Eastern), 1 PM (Central), 12 PM (Mountain), and 11 AM (Pacific).
The number for every audio call is 402.472.6290.

It is not imperative that each member of the core leadership team be on every call, but at least one leadership team member should be present. The calls are to facilitate conversations among the leadership, keep you abreast of activities happening with eXtension, share successes, problems or concerns, keep CoPs moving forward, and other items you feel need to be discussed.

Categories
Community Open Content Virtual Teams

Potential Community of Practice Subject Matter Areas

Thought we might start a conversation on potential CoPs…

Let’s begin a dialogue or share areas in which people are complating creating communities of practice around. This will allow others to see what areas are being proposed and see if their skills and expertise could benefit a proposed CoP.

Categories
Extension Virtual Teams Web

Virtual Teams – a new paradigm from nature

Bioteaming:Why virtual teams need more than internet technology to succeed

What caught my attention was the reference to virtual networked eams being a different beasts…

“Virtually” means that the team will be dependent on Internet technologies much more than before. Less obvious but equally significant is the fact that “virtually” also means that the team operates with “virtual capacity” where virtual is used in its original sense of “not physically present”. This means the team constantly grows and shrinks its active membership throughout its lifetime which makes it much harder to maintain a coherent sense of team and purpose.