I Watched a Live Webinar

I watched a live web broadcast on  http://simplek12.com/webinars/.   I watched a webinar entitled How to get the most out of the teacher learning community.  It was held on June 10 at 1:00 pm pacific time.  The instructor did a great job showing how to use the simplek12.com site to learn from other teachers.  This website offers so many educational topics to choose from that are all taught by other educators.  I am thrilled to learn about this site and all it has to offer.  I am looking forward to listening to other webinars on this site.  What a great way to learn new information.  The broadcaster of the webinar I listened to did a very thorough job of discussing all the different aspects of the site and how to find topics that may of be of interest to you.  Parts of the site can be used for free.   However, to have full access to the site, the broadcaster explained that a user must pay to become a member.  She also explained that if you find a broadcast that you are interested in but cannot log into at the live broadcast, you are still able to watch the recorded version for the next 24 hours if you are not a member.  If you are a paid member, then you have access to the recording anytime.

This particular webinar was muted.  Listeners were not able to communicate with their voice to the broadcaster because there were over 100 people listening to the broadcast.  If the audience had a question, they were able to type their question and the host would verbally answer the question.  I understand that there were too many listeners to be able to communicate verbally, but I would prefer to ask questions with my voice rather than typing my questions.

The audience watched the screen during the broadcast.  The user showed us around the K12 site.  We never did see the broadcaster.  While I liked being able to watch the screen and see what she was talking about on the site, it would have been nice from my perspective to watch the broadcaster as well.

Because of the variety of webinars available, this type of webcast could really be a useful tool for educators to use in the classroom to support a certain topic.  A teacher can log into a webinar and have the class listen to it or participate in a webinar that is being broadcast during class hours.  I can also see a teacher who might need to be out of town setting up a webinar for the class to listen to and learn from even though the instructor can’t be in class.

Another interesting way that an educator can use this format is to have her students create their own webinar.  This would be a great way to assess how much a student has learned about a certain topic.  It would also be fun for some students to broadcast information learned rather than writing a report or taking a written test.  It would be nice for this type of assessment to be given to students as an option.  Webinars are a great way to broadcast information and an excellent way to learn about a new topic.