Week (What are we on now?) 11 No-Class Reflection

I take back everything I ever said about crappy webinars

Ummm- this ain't gonna be so easy!  My webinar group met last night and I am so glad we worked out the kinks (I hope).  Starting out our meeting we weren't sure how much or what we should accomplish.  Though by the end of our meeting, we had created our webinar title and description, fleshed out our presentation slides, and did a dry run of our webinar.

Let me tell you friends- if you haven't figured out how to use Blackboard yet- do so.  Immediately.  We must have spent a good hour or more just trying to get ourselves in the same "room", getting our PowerPoint slides uploaded, and executing a dry run (just clicking through the slides) to figure out the glitches- of which there were many.

Here are some things we learned:

1. To upload your PowerPoint slides you must QUIT PowerPoint (and possibly save them as a .ppt file- not a .pptx file)
2. It might be wise to only use one computer.  If you do use more than one- even if you make give everyone moderating control- only the computer that created the room has ultimate power.
3. Avoid feedback- mute your microphones on all computers but the one you are talking to (if you and your group members are in the same room with each other).
4. Create a draft email in your favorite email service (better than using Blackboard's email interface) with all of your participants as recipients- so you can just copy and paste the invite to the "room", send it, and be on your way.
5. Have a paper "script" to follow along with- technology drains your powers of concentration quickly.

Anything else Elizabeth?

P.S. I see from the syllabus that Kristin is going to give us some extra time in class before our webinar starts- whew!

Good luck everyone!  I'm looking forward to it:)