CNIE 2014 Keynote Speaker Preview: Nancy White, Learner and Consultant at Full Circle Associates

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The 2014 Canadian Network for Innovation in Education Conference takes place on May 13 – 16 at Thompson Rivers University in Kamloops, B.C. The theme for this year’s conference: Confluences – Spaces, Place and Cultures for Innovative Learning.

Nancy White

There is still time to register for this event. Last week, we shined the spotlight on Audrey Watters. Today, we’re giving you a sneak peek of what to expect from Nancy White, who, for lack of a nice clean label, a person interested in too many things. Her work keeps her busy working with clients to design and facilitate online and offline events, and weave learning into everything we do. She is also a proud grandmother and chocoholic.Nancy founded Full Circle Associates to help organizations connect through online and offline strategies. She confesses that it was also to give her a wide open field to be learning and doing new things all the time. She blogs, teaches, presents and writes on online facilitation and interaction, social architecture, graphic facilitation and social media. Nancy is co-author with Etienne Wenger and John Smith of Digital Habitats: stewarding technology for communities.

BCcampus interviewed Nancy to ask her for a preview of what we can expect to hear during her keynote. With a title like “puddle jumping” she said to expect some observations on the critical importance of working the intersections and boundaries, rather than just focusing on the center of action. That can mean small, simple things with big impact. She pointed us to her blog, list of articles, and Slideshare channel to get a taste of her work and interests.

White will be using her time at the podium to share the results of some global action research around collaboration that has sharpened her interest in boundaries, and to suggest how we can leverage the conflicts and tensions in our institutions, instead of letting them slow us down. 

Notable Quotes:

Communities of Practice can provide a social container for linking and learning between practitioners, knowledge producers and policy processes to analyze, address and explore solutions to problems. They can bring together a range of perspectives on a problem, and ensure that relevant knowledge is accessible to those who need it. This is far more than the exchange of knowledge. ~ Nancy White

Technology stewards, who attend to the technologies that support distributed communities, can’t just jump on new technology bandwagons without paying attention to their community’s history, composition, orientation, needs, and tolerance for change. ~ Nancy White

Chocolate is an important part of facilitation. ~ Nancy White

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