Practical and inspiring guides with innovative and participatory learning and knowledge sharing methods are always interesting to read. “Gamestorming, a playbook for innovators, rulebreakers, and change“, written by Dave Gray, Sunni Brown and James Macanufo is a good illustrative example. The entire instructional cycle of a meaningful learning or working event is documented in a very visual and pragmatical way. It moves beyond the usual participatory methodologies such as ‘fishbowl‘, ‘world cafe‘ and ‘open space‘ and introduces you to a variety of new techniques from ‘bodystorming’ until ‘spectrum mapping’. The book is also structured along the cyclical nature of an event from opening until closing and shows you the different creative processes that occur during an event (diverging, emerging and converging). For facilitators and trainers it is handy because the methods are written in a way that you can apply them immediately on-the-job. The book has a virtual extension on http://www.gogamestorm.com/. Any other must reads in this area of participatory learning and knowledge sharing?

DELTA is currently contributing to a learning event on South-South cooperation in Cartagena, Colombia. To explore new formats of organizing events we want to try out the backchannel. As the name suggests it’s an additional channel of communication which takes place in the background to the main channel which in the case of learning events is occupied by speakers or panels of experts  The backchannel is projected at a second screen next to the main screen where participants can send messages, comments, feedback or questions.

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