We presented the first module during live web conferences on Monday (7/9/07). We did two sessions — one at 9am EDT and one at 9pm EDT — to provide opportunities for people in more time zones to participate. I was really pleased that we had participants from places like Ethiopia, Peru, Thailand, China, and Costa Rica. Here’s a few of my observations from my role as “presenter”.
- It takes time to practice the technology. Three of us spent a good part of Sunday and almost all of Monday studying, practicing, and experimenting. Some of this time was spent on the content but a lot was spent getting comfortable with the technology (we used Elluminate).
- Language is, of course, a problem with international communications. I’m an English-only speaker and we had many participants who speak English as a second language. I tried to speak slowly and clearly, we used the chat window to type comments, and we had some help with translations (thanks Alexandra!), but better options are still needed. I think the language problem reinforces the importance of between-session collaboration.
- There are a lot of balls in the air during an interactive web conference. It is hard to manage one of these smoothly and I was tired at the end of the day! I was the “presenter” with the main voice managing the display. Tory acted as moderator interacting with participants via Skype (especially people having a hard time logging in) and the chat window. I tried to follow the chat window but had to be careful not to lose my place in the presentation. Tory would interject, when necessary, about things happening in the background. Meanwhile, Joe was busy recording the session. Having all three of us involved helped a lot.
- The recording worked well! Check out Joe’s fine work – http://www.brightcove.com/title.jsp?title=1114136844&channel=1080193755
- Use two screens. During the second session I was configured to use two screens – a screen that participants saw and a screen that I used to manage the web conference. Being able to see what was happening in the web conference at the same time that the participants saw what I wanted them to, is a big help. Here’s a picture of the two screen setup. The left is what participants saw and the right is what I was using.
I’ll post more lessons from our next two sessions as well so stay tuned in.
July 14, 2007 at 4:25 pm
Hello,
I found you because global web conferencing is my livelihood. I work in a traditional corporate environment, using large scale corporate tools (read: costly technical and human infrastructure), specifically Lotus Sametime for web conferencing.
Seems like your first session was quite successful. I totally relate to the balls juggling scene — I teach web conferencing to my organization using Sametime, so that I’m running a conference as well as herding as many as 40 cats connecting from the global enterprise through the course material. A challenge.
I haven’t seen it specified, and I’m curious: what is “GDLN”?
Anyway, thanks!
–MUDGE (your fellow WordPress.com blogger)
July 20, 2007 at 8:39 am
Hi Mudge,
Thanks for the reassurance! Cats or balls, there is a lot to keep track of during interactive web conferences. Please let us know you tips and lessons.
GDLN is the “Global Development Leearning Network”. It is focused on networking and learning to fight global poverty. One of our participants posted a good defintion on http://groups.google.com/group/gdln/web/glossary-of-terms.
dave