Web Conference Reflection

I was one of the first 100 people to log on the very first web conference for this class which took place on Sunday, February 27th from 5:00-6:00. I was also able to take place in Dr. Cummings web conference that took place on Wednesday, March 9 from 6:00-7:00. Although I have all of the required hardware and am able to easily operate the software for an interactive web conference, I did not actually use my camera at either conference. I wasn’t given “presenter” permissions at the first conference given that there were 100 people involved. The conversation was chaotic at best, and as someone who already knew how to operate a web conference I didn’t feel it was beneficial for me. It was more frustrating than anything else, when people’s questions were quickly passed over and lost without ever being answered. I think it would help if people were trained in “netiquette” and understood the need for only asking and answering questions that are relevant to the class. What I believe Lamar’s online program really needs is a weekly web conference that can address more general questions about things such as the internship portfolio, graduation requirements, TK20, etc. It is obvious that we need guidance in these areas more so than with our weekly assignments which come with a well thought out rubric that can be used to guide students in their assignments. I had a much more positive experience with Dr. Cummings web conference as there were only 28 participants which is a much more manageable number. As before, people were way off topic, and often completely distracted from the task at hand, which detracted from the questions of the people who were participating in the web conference to gain needed information about assignments. I have participated in web conferences for other classes where the professor presents a question or topic at the beginning that guides the discussion and then questions about the assignments are asked intermittently. I like this format much better than randomly allowing everyone to say whatever pops into their head (Just like we try to prevent out students from “blurting out” whatever pops into their head in a regular classroom). I was also shocked to realize just how many of my peers had never participated in a web conference before, or even participated in a chat. I consider myself a digital native as I have been using chat rooms to communicate with friends since I started high school. I graduated in 2003, but even so, many of the newer technologies that my 7th grade students are using are even new to me. So I can understand how lost some of the older candidates feel as compared to their students! I only hope that I can keep up as I know that technology will even be changing the way I do my job in the near future, both as a teacher and as a future administrator.