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.
Hi Megan,
ReplyDeleteThanks for sharing your thoughts about the webinars! As the other half of your group, I have to say that I was really proud of us for pushing through our tech difficulties too! You had a good insight in saying that it was less stressful to have a tech glitch when we were tucked away from our audience's eyes and could troubleshoot while continuing to present material. Had this been in front of a class, I think it would have been a different experience, since we would have had to stop the presentation, disrupt the flow of instruction and then relaunch!
Overall, I found the process of building the webinar to be a rich learning experience and wonder how it could be brought into the classroom. Like you said, the live (and short) webinars were much more engaging than the prerecorded ones. Additionally, it seems like one of the main reasons to use webinars is location! If you have your students in the same room 5 days a week, this feature becomes less useful. I agree that webinars seem to have more utility for our learning than for our students', but it will be interesting to see if this changes with time and experience!
Thanks again for sharing your thoughts, Megan!
Hey Megan! I participated in a webinar prior to this project for an introduction to the MAC program, and thought it was really amazing way to get information out and answer questions for a large group of people. I think there was at least fifty in attendance during that webinar. So I had a different opinion going into this assignment. However, I agree with your concern on it's practicality in a classroom setting. My main concern with it is the student's access to technology outside of school, and your concern with younger students being able to use it is totally understandable. I think if we can get past those two issues (technology and teaching students how to use it), I think it would be a really powerful tool to use for things like an exam or an extra help review session for students. It could be a really useful way to provide extra support for students who may be struggling in class. This way, students could get that extra "tutoring" even if they can't afford it and maybe it can help to reduce the achievement gap in schools. Anyways, keep up the great work!
ReplyDelete