Effective Webinars: Some Tips

A webinar allows a presenter or a group to conduct live presentations over the Internet via a web-conferencing software such as Adobe Connect or Blackboard Collaborate (Elluminate). Webinars can include many features, but generally include a series of PowerPoint slides. The audience members can ask questions and often interact in the chat window provided. Audio is usually received via phone lines or through the computer speakers. Webinars are often recorded and can be accessed later for just-in-time viewing and review. Although Webinars may not be as effective as a face-to-face session, with today's economic climate, they allow organizations to save time and money while still meeting the needs of their faculty.

I just found this blog post by Maria Anderson in which she references an article she wrote for eLearn Magazine called Tips for Effective Webinars.  She goes through a “Before, During, and After” set of tips for giving a good, effective, and engaging webinar. Unfortunately, because the article has been archived, many of the examples and images did not come through. The suggestions, however, are very helpful.

Here’s topics list for the tips that appear in the article:

• Recording and distribution
• Presentation design
• Engage often
• Animation
• Hyperlinks
• Video clips
• Trial run
• Arrive early
• Clear directions
• Desktop sharing
• Webcam sharing
• The echo
• After the Webinar

Additional related articles:

How to Give a Webinar (and Not Look Like an Idiot)

What makes a webinar great? — a Q-and-A with Ann Handley

The Webinar Blog: Tips

5 Surefire Tips For Running An Effective And Engaging Webinar

I think critically, therefore I am

Times Higher Education, August 6 2009 Dr. Linda Elder

Teaching students to read and understand a text properly is essential to their intellectual survival in a complex world. Elder has developed a four-part approach to teaching her psychology students to think critically. As you read through the series of activities, remember that any of the details can and should be contextualized to fit the situation, student group, and so forth. I also found the comments interesting.

• Part one: reading closely
• Part two: analyzing the text
• Part three: sharing papers and giving feedback to one another
• Part four: speaking in the voice of the author (role-playing)
  

Sloan-C resources

I have been using the resources provided by the Sloan Consortium for my doctoral research, especially Sloan-C's Effective Practices site. The Sloan-C community shares techniques, strategies, and practices in online education that have worked for them. All effective practices are peer reviewed to both insure quality and to give submitters some documentation for tenure and promotion files."

Search categories for the site:
- Search by Pillar allows you to search by the five Sloan-C pillars, the building blocks of quality online education -- learning effectiveness, scale, access, faculty satisfaction, and student satisfaction -- and/or subcategories within them.
- Search by Context allows you to search by your perspectives (roles) in online learning, organizational type, or subject area domain, as well as by special cases of online learning (such as online collaboration, or large class size), and/or by subcategories within these.
- Search by Technology allows you to search by particular technology categories -- audio, video, synchronous, asynchronous, mobile, virtual, and digital resources -- and/or by subcategories within them.
- What's New returns the most recent effective practices added to the site.

Seven Principles of Effective Teaching and Online Learning

Eugenia Conway, Assistant Director of The Teaching Academy at New Mexico State University notes that “Many instructors of traditional courses who rightly believe that learning is a social process consider ‘same-time same-place’ interaction central to a successful educational experience’” (American Federation of Teachers quoted in Conway, 2003). They dispute whether students can get an equivalent education online. Therefore, one way to ensure that quality remains in online learning is to review Chickering & Gamson’s principles, which were based on 50 years of research and have been considered the standard for best practices for over 25 years. Her paper relates the Seven Principles to online learning: Teaching Strategies for Distance Education: Implementing the Seven Principles for Good Practice in Online Education. Not only does the paper provide specific ways that technology can enhance teaching and learning, but it also contains a discussion about “opposing paradigms”—teacher-centered (traditional, positivism) vs. student-centered (constructivism) classrooms and provides specifics for developing rubrics and electronic portfolios.

I also came across the following resource which provides a, "A Framework for the Pedagogical Evaluation of eLearning Environments". The paper uses Chickering & Gamson's (1987) 'Seven Principles of Effective Teaching' as the framework for examining the potential of Virtual Learning Environments to enhance learning. It also includes a questionnaire based on the viable system and conversational models articulated by Britain and Liber (2004). The document is made available from Eduforge, "an open access collaborative learning and exploratory environment designed for the sharing of ideas, research outcomes, open source educational software, and tools within a community of educators, researchers and developers."

Instructional Designer as Consultant

Last night I attended a panel discussion coordinated by one of the professors at Queens. The topic was advertising. Since I initially wanted to go into public relations, and I was Publicity Chair for several organizations/groups, I have an interest in advertising and media relations. Therefore, I decided to attend. Although the discussion primarily focused on how the various panel participants did their jobs, I found one gem that I could relate to my new job responsibilities.

Toward the end of the discussion, one student asked how the panel members would handle a client who came in with an idea that they thought would absolutely not work or the client that came in with a "it's my way" attitude. After much discussion, the final verdict was that they worked as consultants only. Ultimately, the client has the right to make his/her own decision. Their job is to listen to the client and provide options. That means they often prepare several packages/choices for the client to choose from. One participant indicated that his company recognizes that there is the client's idea, the company's idea, and the idea that blends the two (hopefully, the one the client chooses).

The discussion had relevance to how I need to work with the faculty at Queens. My role is that of consultant--which entails building trust on both ends. The word consultant comes from the Latin word meaning "to discuss;" a consultant today is a professional who provides advice in a particular area of expertise. Like the ad people, it is my job to be familiar with the possible options that faculty have in converting their courses online and to help them develop their ideas. I need to present these options, but be aware that ultimately it is the instructor's decision on which options to incorporate and when.

During the instructional design phase, I work with each faculty member to review the course's learning objectives and consider the following questions:

• How should content be organized?
• How should ideas be presented to the learners?
• What delivery format(s) should be used?
• What types of activities and exercises will best help learners?
• How should the course measure learners' accomplishments?

The answers to these questions help create the course structure and lead to appropriate instructional strategies. When I suggest instructional strategies for a course, I am drawing upon not only theoretical knowledge (what I've read) but also practical experience. There are many different ways to sequence and present content to learners. As the panel also pointed out, part of my job is education--educating faculty about what is available to them, the advantages and disadvantages, how to use these resources, etc. Generally, the course's activities and exercises must fit with the type of learning the students' are asked to do (tied to the objectives). The course's assessments should measure the learner's progress toward meeting the learning objectives; therefore they should also fit the learning objectives. Thus, the clearer the instructor is in defining what he/she wants the learner to accomplish the easier it is to choose instructional strategies and assessments.