When we were first asked to watch a webinar and share our thoughts, I have to say I wasn't that impressed. I had never attended one and it was a new experience, but I was fairly bored and got sick of watch the same powerpoint slide on the screen. I also wasn't sure how much I'd be able to pay attention if I attended one live. Upon first impression, I wasn't that impressed.
In our Teaching with Technology class this past week, instead of going to class like normal we were assigned a project where we would work with a partner or a small group to design and give a webinar presentation on a Web 2.0 tool and its uses in the classroom. Although unfamiliar with the process of creating a webinar, it was a good learning experience which involved research, getting to know our Web 2.0 tool, creating slides, and scripting or outlining what we wanted to highlight in the 20 minutes allotted.
When it came to the week of our presentation we did a run through to make sure we understood how all the technology and functions worked, and invited some of our friends who weren't in the class to watch. This turned out to be extremely helpful because it made us aware of small technicalities that we needed to fix and familiarized us with the Blackboard Collaborate program which we were to use to give the presentation. On the actual day of our webinar, I felt really prepared, but like always technology can choose when it doesn't want to function! One aspect I really liked about the webinar, was that although we had malfunctions (our slides for the presentation weren't showing up) I felt like we were able to more easily surpass this problem because we didn't have a live audience. One of us was able to continue to present while the other handled the difficulties. Although it was a little stressful in the moment and disappointing because we may not have been able to share everything we had planned and practiced, the technology allowed us to do a bunch of behind the scenes work that didn't really interrupt the flow of our presentation too much - this is something I really liked about the webinar presentation!
Also, when it came time to watch everyone else's, I can't say I was that enthusiastic about it because the one I had previously watched for our assignment wasn't all that interested or engaging for me. However, I really enjoyed listening to everyone's webinars! I think they were full of personality and that everyone worked hard to make them engaging and interesting. They weren't too long and for that reason they kept you on your toes, because if you got side tracked for just a second you may have missed something. Overall, the experience I had on Thursday night watching everyone's webinar was great!
As for webinars as a tool for teaching, I think given constraints in technology in many cases, webinars are difficult to do within the K-12 educational system. Even if pre-recorded and watched in the school, the live interaction is lost and that is what I found most engaging in comparison to the pre-recorded ones I had watched before. Overall I think that webinars would be a great way for teachers to participate in teacher development with others throughout the country (or the world!) but that for educational purposes I would find them challenging to use in my current setting, for example, in a middle school.
