Dipping my Toes into Webinars

My first experience with Webinars was a few weeks ago, when I listened to a recording of a live show in Classroom 2.0 on digital storytelling/ storyboards. I felt intimidated at the thought of attending a true "live" online seminar, so I figured I'd check it out first so I would know what I was up against. After that, I attended a Beginner Series Live Show (check calendar for times) about creating a wiki on wikispaces. It was a fun and educational experience, you'll want to go back for more :)





Useful things to know about Classroom 2.0 Live!:

• Definitely check out an archived recordings first, to get used to the "look and feel" of the Elluminate vRooms the webinars are usually held at.
  
• Archived shows are useful because you can play, pause, rewind, ff, etc like a video player, so you can listen/ watch at your own pace. You can also search for them by categories (see right side of Archive page).
  
• The live shows/ webinars usually last 1 hour, but you can come and go as you please, there are usually over fifty people attending, so nobody will notice/hold it against you.
• You need to install a piece of software in your computer first, when you click on the Archived file it will probably walk you through it, so don't wait till the live show starts to do this, do it ahead of time.
• Don't feel like you have to participate as soon as you get into the "virtual" classroom, just sit back and listen to the hosts.
• There is always an intro at the beginning on how the vRoom works for beginners.
• There are three main window frames, one with a list of partipants, one for the ongoing (written) chat messages, and a big one on the right which acts as a "white board" where the hosts show you how to do things.
  
• Don't pay attention to the chat window at first, people are writting things as the host is speaking and it gets crazy if you try to follow the chat and listen to the host.
• The chat is good if you're too shy to raise your hand and take the microphone to ask a question (if you're the opposite and would like your 15 seconds of fame, you can even turn on your video and ask the question so people can see you while you speak).
• There are always A LOT of other people in there that are webinar virgins, so don't be embarassed about asking questions or making comments.
• Don't feel like you have to take notes on everything, the show recording is published the next day on the site.
• All links that come up are provided at the end of a session, usually via a link to a webpage which contains them all. This is very useful!
• They are usually very laid back yet informative events.
• If you don't like it, you can leave the room at any time.

N.B. Because of the NECC conference, I think the next live webinar isn't till July 11th. I'll send out a note when I find out the exact one so a few of us can meet up in there, it would be nice to "see" familiar faces...