Webinar with ENG 315

ENG 315 Logo

Earlier this evening, I spent my ENG 315 class time for the night teaching via webinar rather than in a F2F session.

Using CMU’s access to Wimba, I invited my students to post three slides related to their experience attending a conference or otherwise engaging in personalized professional development this semester. Also, we back-channeled in a public Google Doc.

The assignment was straightforward enough, asking them to attend six hours of PD and then to write a professional response that describes their experience at a professional conference or workshop, integrating what you learned from a presenter who talked about teaching writing with principles from ENG 315.

The results, I felt, turned out to be pretty good. Minus some technical hurdles and the fact that our class time stretch to about two and a half hours (which is what we normally meet F2F, although I had promised an early finish tonight), the results from a final survey were good. Here are the overall results:

Survey Results

There were some negative responses to this activity, including the amount of time it took and the fact that many of my students admitted to falling into the temptation of being online and got distracted. That said, there were some positives, too. I asked “What is one positive aspect of participating in the webinar, in terms of the content, working with your peers online, or your experience presenting?”

  • Cool to work online, never done this before
  • I really enjoyed the way we could share powerpoints and so much information in the webinar.I liked seeing the slides of everyone’s professional development.
  • I think it made sharing documents and direct information much easier. It was also nice to hear about the experiences of everyone because it is nice to compare and contrast experiences we have had throughout the semester
  • I think this was a great experience.  I have never done anything like this before.
  • Although I enjoyed it, it was hard for me to sit here this whole time without getting fidgety.
  • The content is all digital. I like that i can go back and look at everything if i need to or want to.
  • It wasnt a presentation that you do and then is gone forever.
  • it takes the stress and nerves off of presenting in front of the class
  • I think a positive aspect to the webinar was just the practice of having an online experience such as this. It is nice to be able to see the links while we are taking turns talking and be able to return to the information later
  • i really like the presentation aspect, i wasn’t nervous to present opposed to in the classroom where i normally experience anxiety.
  • One positive aspect was that everybody got a chance to talk about their experience. Learning a new technology tool was a positive aspect and it was a nice alternative to having class so close to a break. It relieved some of the pressure of presenting in front of the class and I  liked that.
  • I enjoyed being able to have a side conversation or make comments in the conversation box during the presentation for educational purposes. I also liked sharing slides this way.
  • You can do it from anywhere so great idea with Thanksgiving coming up!
  • I think it was an interesting way to incorporate technology and it was cool to use wimba.
So, in general, they found it to be a positive experience. I did too, and I have shared the video (all 2.5 hours of it!) here on Vimeo if you are curious to see how some of it progressed.

ENG 315 Professional Development Reflection Webinar from Chippewa River Writing Project on Vimeo.

Wow… two blog posts in one day. I think I have reached my quota for the month.

Happy Thanksgiving everyone.

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