Hello everyone, these are my impressions:
EXCITEMENTS:
Thank you, Lucy and Steve, and the rest of your team members for creating this wonderful website, and for organizing this great online conference around the world! It really makes everyone feel that we are entering into a new era in the history of civilization via new technology, and we can make a big difference as a community of Global Educators. What a great tool is the Blackboard! Only I can see that me and many of us still uncomfortable with using it during our sessions.
CONFUSIONS:
I am not an advanced online communicator, many things were new to me. That's why before the conference I tried to complete carefully steps in the instruction of how to use our Webinar Platform. I attended training session, I watched tutorial video, and learned how I can use different features as a presenter and a participant. In order to try upload my files I went to Learning Center's vroom but there was no button for uploading files there. When I entered my vroom at the conference at my presentation time, I discovered that files of my type cannot be uploaded.Thank you, Steve and my moderator Amie for helping me out with it! I have tried out other Blackboard features at the training but during my presentation session I had trouble using all these features right as I was trying to focus mainly on my presentation content. It reminded me of learning of how to drive when I had to pay attention to many things at the same time. I got confused with giving people permissions to talk. I expected my partcipants to know how to show their location on the map but they didn't. I never turned my microphone off, that's why could not hear some questions properly because of echo. I was able to pay attention to what is going on in chat only by the end of my session. I couldn't undo pushing the wrong button, and got a bar covering my whiteboard slide. I am grateful that Amie helped me, so my presentation was not that bad after all :-) I thought it would be a good idea to turn my video on at least when I am answering questions. Watching my recorded session later, I discovered that I could have done a better job on positioning myself, and on my face expressions :) Later, attending other sessions, and watching recorded sessions, I discovered that I am not alone with my confusions. That's why I decided to share them with you, so we can think of the ways to improve learning Blackboard skills for the beginners in the future. I have some ideas on how to make training better.
SUGGESTIONS:
Besides information on how to use Blackboard people need opportunities for more practice where they can gain HABITS in using those new skills, feel more comfortable, and be able to focus better on a content of a session. It is great to begin with watching tutorial video but it does not allow for the opportunity of interaction, and for the opportunity to train these skills in live session.There was a very little opportunity to do it on a training session I attended. During online learning session a teacher cannot see what is different on a student's screen, what makes a student get stuck in following his/her instructions. Especially, there is a very little opportunity of instructor's help in personal confusions in a big group.
I suggest following steps of training presenters:
1.Training sessions need more interraction for the opportunity of each presenter to try this role functions. 2. Each presenter need at least 2-3 short presentation practice where she/he actually will use those skills in live session. Small group of 3-6 people with a moderator can take turns of giving short 5-10 minutes presentations. (I thought there will be an opportunity for that in Central Learning vroom but it was different.)
3. Someone should examine presenters and make sure they are comfortable using the Blackboard features when presenting.
4. No matter if a presenter is comfortable in using Blackboard, there is always still a need for a moderator's support at the session, just in case if different things need to be done at the same time.
Also, I hope that Blackboard creators analyse our experience in using it, and enhance the features for the convinience of users.
I hope this information was useful. Please correct me if I am wrong in anything.
Thank you!
Replies
Hi, Marina. Good comments! However, you must not have entered your vRoom as a moderator, and that's why you had trouble with the slide uploading. If you had emailed, we might have been able to help you.
We have made a conscious decision with this conference, in order to have five days of sessions, to ask the presenters to become familiar with Blackboard themselves. Since we have extremely limited funding and the conference is a labor of love, that's the only way we are able to have this work. We understand that many presenters are used to getting more help, but we don't have the resources beyond the training sessions that we do--the upside is that we are able to bring together thousands of people from all over the world in an event that really has no equal! :)
Really appreciate you taking the detail your thoughts.
Cheers,
Steve
Hi Steve, I appreciate how much work you have done putting everything together with so limited resources. The conference goes great ! I figured, the closer was the conference, the more busy you were, and it is not right to bother you with every little thing. Also, no one can predict what can go wrong for the begginers. It is definitely worth if the most of volunteer moderators can dedicate, for instance, a one extra hour of their time to let presenters get comfortable with using Blackboard during short TRAINING PRESENTATIONS SESSIONS, of course after presenters learn on their own of how to use Blackboard. That would make a huge difference for everyone. It is not neccesary to do this right before the conference, it can be done any other time of the year, or a few days after the confeence when people still motivated to train those skills. Hopefully, more of us will be more experienced in using Blackboard at the next conference. Thank you for all your help and all this work you have done!
We recognize that this is a different kind of a conference experience for presenters. First, we're highly *inclusive,* since we believe it's really important to bring as many people into the conference to present as we can, and then let the audience decide which sessions they want to go to. We are also doing something very interesting when we push the responsibility out to the presenters to prepare themselves. This is a conscious decision--a decision not to get caught in holding an event that has to spend too much time in the wrong areas. I say that carefully, but I think accurately. Of the sessions I've attended, I'd say about a third of the presenters either didn't 1) join the speakers group as per instructions to receive all the pre-conference material, or 2) didn't attend or watch a training. In your case, you tried and had difficulty--but we also indicated you could go to http://www.wecollaborate.com, the user community for Collaborate, and ask questions there, as well as practice in your vRoom.
This is a really good discussion to be having, and I'm super-glad you've brought it up, since we should scrutinize these decisions. Our decision to leave the burden of preparing on the speakers means that with very limited resources we can focus on other things rather than having to build a lot of systems for those who are the least willing to follow through with their responsibilities (again, not you). Is that the right decision? Not sure, but I think it is.
Thanks, Marina!
Steve, I think your "highly inclusive" policy is very reasonable; according to this policy, you have to make the participation in the conference as much easy as you can. As the participants have to learn how to use your Webinar Platform, I think it is wise decision to leave it up to them how much effort they want and they can to put into it. Especially, if a third of the presenters did not put a highly recommended minimum of their effort, this group of educators definitely do not need any extra effort on your part to help them out. Also, this decision goes well with your limited resources. However, I believe that many of the presenters would like to be more prepared for their sessions. As an educators, we have a professional habit of always look for effective ways of learning, and we more care about ways we learn than other people. In this case, having opportunity of interraction and practice is much more efficient and much less time consuming than trying to figure things out on our own. It is like learning a foreign language without much opportunity of interraction and practice. So, I agree with your decision for the participants in general but disagree for this group of educators. Yes, I went to wecollaborate.com but they requre registration, and I am not sure if I want to be involved in one more social network, at least not at this time; I just wanted to learn how to use the tool and be able to feel comfortable with it when I need it. I think it is a good idea to find out if anyone else want to participate in a couple more training sessions with an opportunity to give a short presentation in a few days after the conference. I am sure you can find a small group of volunteers, and somebody from your Advisory Board to supervise them in finding the most effective ways of training presenters. I can help with finding effective ways too. Let's find out if there is a need for that.
Steve, I think that the Blackboard is a fantastic tool for conducting Webinars, and I would recommend it to anyone who needs it. Thank you again!