disConferencing, a five-and-a-third-hour model: Session 1

Hour ? to 1.00

Session 1, Getting Here & Exposing Diverse Points of Potential Interaction

This activity emphasizes Respect—for yourself and others—from the outset, making it more comfortable for you to Risk talking about your personal journey.  You may gain insights—Revelations—from what you hear yourself include in your stories.

A circle gets going as soon as it has filled:

• Welcome from circle coordinator (=an organizer or a volunteer arranged by the organizer)
• Initial 7-minute activity (guided freewriting on hopes for the dis/Conference)
• 30-second introductions (= name or handle & hopes for the workshop)
• Autobiographical Introductions: “How I came to be someone who would end up at a dis/Conference on this topic” –equal time for everyone (=5 minutes or less if the group starts late).
  • Gives participants an opportunity to introduce themselves in narrative depth, their current and emerging work, and learn more about each other
  • Coordinator goes first to model
  • Everyone encouraged to take notes on points of intersection, interest, curiosity. After the first four introductions stop to draw connections and discuss with a neighbor what is emerging.
• Last 5 minutes: Decide as a group and print on large PostIts one common thread and one tension among the participants.  Print these on large PostIts (Blue for commonality and Red for tension).  Coordinator collects these and posts them on the board for Session 1.

(Page 1 of the handout has the instructions above plus instructions, http://bit.ly/Freewrite, & space for guided freewriting.)

(continued in next post)