Knowledge Cafés in Northern Sydney Institute
The idea for setting up Knowledge Cafés in Northern Sydney Institute (NSI) came from David Gurteen, an English knowledge consultant who has established Knowledge Cafés all over the world.
A Knowledge Café is intended to engage a group of people – 10-30 or more – in discussions about a particular idea, topic or theme and can be held at any venue. The Cafés are informal meeting places where participants leave with an enhanced knowledge of what they know, or don’t know about a subject, what others know or don’t know, and where or who to go to if they want to improve their knowledge on a café topic. The desired outcome of these cafés is for people to discover new connections and to achieve a deeper understanding of a subject. At NSI a group of teachers and librarians from each college, called the College Knowledge Exchange Team, meet on a regular basis to discuss knowledge management subjects and to drive knowledge sharing in the Institute. Members of this group are now the drivers of the Knowledge Cafés at each college in NSI. The cafés are run in each college library about once a month with coffee and cake an added attraction for staff. The focus of the cafés this year has been on new technologies and topics covered include blogs, wikis, podcasts, SharePoint, digital storytelling, electronic whiteboards, Breeze, plus more.
Staff have been able to learn about these new technologies in a friendly non-threatening environment, have seen how other teachers have used them with their learners, and have found out (and often met) who to contact for help in using these technologies with their own classes. Teachers from other Institutes have been invited to attend the cafés to share their experiences and expertise with NSI staff. Stephan Ridgeway, Sydney Institute, demonstrated his extensive use of podcasting and vblogging, and provided various examples of i-pods and i-rivers etc – pointing out their strengths and weaknesses.
Stephanie Wallbank, a teacher from Ryde College, commented:
We discussed the educational possibilities of blogs and could see applications in such areas as students’ online journals and newsletters etc, from sections or departments such as libraries.
At the recent TAFE NSW Quality Awards, NSI showcased the Knowledge Cafés and were able to hold three different sessions during the day, including one on blogs and wikis, one on ‘why people don’t share’ and one on the value of SharePoint. Owen Michaels-Hardy and James Humffray facilitated the first session and provided some excellent handouts and guidelines on using blogs, wikis, and flikr in a learning environment. The Blog Guidelines, developed by Owen, highlight the value of using blogs but also provide good coverage of the duty of care issues when using these online technologies in an uncontrolled online environment.
Sharing the knowledge at the Quality Awards
The second session was facilitated by Helene Brown and Lucy Hill and an article called 10 Reasons Why People Don’t Share was given to participants to stimulate conversation. The last session was facilitated by Amanda Matthews, Shane Morgan and Helene Brown and highlighted the latest webparts available in SharePoint including using a blog in a SharePoint website. This stimulated discussion on the value of using this type of software to provide learners with a collaborative workspace in a controlled environment.
It was exciting to discover a high level of interest in the Knowledge Cafés by staff from other Institutes at the Quality Awards and turned out to be a great venue for bringing cross-functional groups together for knowledge sharing and collaborating.
If you want to find out more about these Knowledge Cafés in NSI please contact
Helene Brown
Manager, Knowledge & Information Services
TAFE NSW Northern Sydney Institute
Also See
David Gurteen – Knowledge Cafés
Conversation for Learning | A-Z Resources
Conversations – creating a space for learning and innovation FEATURE | eZine November 2006