Attending a Live Webinar

I've attended live Webinars before for other classes and for professional development, and I'm always amazed at how different they can be depending on the platform that is used.

I attended a Webinar given through EdWeek that focused on teaching students writing. The first thing that the lead presenter did was to give a few moments for everyone to check their audio and visual feeds. She posted in the comments section (because there was a comments section) that everyone should be able to hear her talking because she was live with audio. I had to click on the "allow flashplayer" icon that showed up on my screen to see the PowerPoint that she was running during the Webinar itself. What was the most interesting is that there was a list of resources, even a troubleshooting resource, available for attendees along the side of the webinar.

There was also a transcript available for reference if anyone needed it later or for audio-impaired attendees.  I also really appreciated that there was a space for us to post questions and one of the commentators would reply. Their response was in bold, so we could tell the difference between those who were running the show and those who were attending. Others could also respond to questions posed, but not many people did.

The Webinar that I attended was also very interactive. The moderators posted polls and questions that we could click on the answers and a few moments later, they gave us the data that they collected. I thought that was really interesting! There was also one head moderator who was joined by other teachers/administrators and educational specialists from around the country, but I believe only one person had control of what was on the screen. It was nice to hear input from more than one person on the given topic.

One thing that I wish could have happened was that more than a PowerPoint was shown. At times, the moderators were just reading from the slide, and that wasn't helpful at all. I've seen Webinars created that basically screen cast and we can watch someone on their computer as they use it. The one that I watched was an hour long, and it was basically like sitting through a lecture, but without anyone else around, and after a while, I got a little bored. Most of what I was watching was just text, and when describing how to keep education engaging for students, I think it's important to also keep that information engaging for the teachers!

I think Webinars would be useful in classrooms to get ideas and lessons from people outside of our school building. I think students could also create Webinars to give their ideas/presentations/even lessons to other students within our community and outside of it. Webinars could really help develop the "guide on the side" type of classroom, although I think it really just transfers the direct instruction from the classroom teacher to whoever is presenting the Webinar.