Edublogs webinar overviews Oct 2013

Introduction

Still running behind on webinar overviews. A digest of  our recent webinars over the last few weeks.

Fine Focus – Presenting with Blackboard Collaborate

As always this session was recorded. The session was our last webinar before the Reform Symposium Online Conference #RSCON #RSCON4 and so we decided to provide a further training/practise/question and answer opportunity for presenters/volunteers.

Serendipity 17/18 Oct 2013

In this recorded Serendipity session we talked about the recent Reform Symposium Conference #RSCON #RSCON4. We were a small group and all of us had had some involvement as participants or presenter/volunteer/organiser, so the session provided an opportunity for us to share our thoughts, reflections and ideas.

Fine Focus – “Tech Smackdown”

This was another recorded session the intention was a quick tech smackdown type share of some favourite tools/applications that save time or that we use with students but we ended up discussing a variety of: tried and tested tools, some previously used with students and some new that we plan to try. All in all a great session with many shared links.

Serendipity 31 Oct/1 Nov 2013

In this recorded Serendipity session our chosen topic was “Blended Learning”. We started with a discussion on our understanding of the term blended learning, moved on to share tools that have been part of our best blended learning experiences, considered some of the advantages, and ended with a brief look at how/why we choose tools and strategies for blended learning.

Conclusion

Once again I am finally up to date with posting webinar links. Sorry again for the short session descriptions.

Our Next Webinar

FineFocusSmallOur next webinar will be an Edublogs “FineFocus” session on Thursday Nov 7th at 23:00 GMT/UTC (Afternoon/Evening USA) or Friday Nov 8th at 7am West Aus, later in the  morning Eastern States Aus depending on your timezone (check yours here) – in the usual BlackboardCollaborate room.

Reform Symposium presenter training – overview

Introduction

Wow! In the last 24 hours I have facilitated three exciting training sessions for presenters at  “The Reform Symposium (#RSCON3)” If the enthusiasm and committment of those attending is anything to go by this will be a fantastic conference. Despite covering mostly the same ground (we did this three times to try and accommodate as many timezones as possible) the three sessions were very different from one another.

The Sessions

Here are the recording links for the three sessions (all were held in the Edublogs/Elluminate community patrneship Elluminate room). Times are in GMT/UTC if you are not sure which one you attended then (check your timezone here):

First session Saturday 16th July at 04:00 GMT/UTC

Second session Saturday 16th July at 10:00 GMT/UTC

Third session Saturday 16th July at 22:00 GMT/UTC

These sessions were great fun for me as the facilitator although very demanding trying to keep up with all the questions and ensure that everyone was able to take away what they wanted. On the whole I think they were very successful. I have checked through as much as I can to see if any questions were not addressed and haven’t found any obvious ones. If you have one and I missed it then please ask through a comment on this post so that everyone will be able to see the answer.

Anyone who wants to use my map is very welcome. You can access it from Item 4 on my Bits and Pieces page. It is saved as .wbd (to keep the moveable symbols) so you will need to right click and save rather than open it directly.

The powerpoint that I uploaded to the whiteboards is now on slideshare and I have added a couple of slides to expand the info on application share and to explain webtours.

Some Thoughts!

These sorts of sessions are always awesome to facilitate – the thirst for knowledge is just so exciting, and so also is the appreciation and mutual sharing that happens! I always agonise afterwards about whether I “got it right”.

Did I talk too much? Yes almost certainly! Trying to pack everything in to a short time and make sure all questions are addressed is always hard – having text chat is such a help for that as I can pick up questions and try to weave the answers into what I am saying and also anyone else who knows can chip in with the answer.

Were there enough opportunities for people to try things? Almost certainly not! Especially in the last session where we had over 40 people plus a very unhelpful participant who disrupted the session considerably – eventually we removed him.

Did I deal with the disruptive participant in the last session adequately? I don’t think I did, too much benefit of the doubt given! I should have acted to remove him sooner, and this is a lesson learned for me, and one I will always find difficult. I know I am too soft about disruptive presences in face-to-face classes also.

Please leave a comment if you have any thoughts on the sessions or any questions

Conclusion

Training sessions like these are fantastic for me as they keep me thinking and learning the whole time. Stretching me to use all the Elluminate skills and knowledge that I don’t really use every day.

Our Next Regular Webinar

SerendipitybsmallOur next session is an Edublogs “Serendipity” session on Thursday July 21st at 23:00 GMT/UTC (Afternoon/Evening USA) or Friday July 22nd at 7am West Aus, mid morning Eastern States Aus depending on your timezone (check yours here) – in the usual Elluminate room. This is one of our fortnightly unconference sessions where we invite you to bring along your “hot topics” and “burning issues” for our poll on the topic of the day.