Webinars...

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I attended two Simple K12 webinars this afternoon: "15 iPad Tips for Teachers" and "Differentiating to Meet the Needs of All Students." Differentiation has been around a long time...maybe it was new to this presenter's audience (he is the leader of a private school), but there wasn't much new here. It would be a great refresher...possibly some good staff development for new teachers...a targeted audience.

"15 iPad Tips for Teachers" was very basic, but extremely useful. It packed a lot of solid information into 30 quick minutes...all of it immediately useful to teachers who have just received their first installment of iPads. At $400 a pop, my guess is these will very quickly supplant laptop carts and echelons of oft-unused desktops, so this webinar was a good introduction.

The one weakness of the show was the rapid pace. Because I've used my iPad A LOT, I was able to keep up pretty well, but I could see that if you were the novice this content targets, it could have been tough. Fifteen ideas in 30 minutes equals 2 minutes per concept, minus transitions...pretty quick pacing. It gave me quite a bit to think about vis-a-vis my own up-coming webinar, because if I do anything, it is cram loads of facts into short periods of time. I also prefer a webinar format where people can immediately ask questions, etc. On this one, you could text a question, but you had to wait for an answer...I've always appreciated more immediate give-and-take webinars. I imagine this is a very organized program, that "air time" is perhaps contracted and limited...so maybe they can't leave a lot of room for spontaneity.

The major strength of the webinar was it was very user-friendly: easy to listen to and understand, and very personable. The military figured out years ago that people listened and responded better to pleasant female voices and programmed many of their voice-operated systems using women's voices. I get it. The woman who presented this webinar was INFINITELY more engaging than the very pleasant and knowledgeable gentleman who conducted the webinar on differentiation. To think...I actually fit a model demographic of sorts.

I would absolutely participate in this type of webinar again...in fact, there is an entire week of iPad programs on tap for next week, and I'm going to share Simple K12 with my colleagues...

I can see many ways I would use a webcast in a classroom:
     1) Scheduled substitute: For the REALLY IMPORTANT lesson you can't afford to be less than
         "perfect." On more than one occasion, I've had to, because of content flow and field trip schedules, etc., give a pivotal lesson/activity to a sub, and every single time, it's been...well, not good. Not because the sub wasn't good, but because that lesson really took MY enthusiasm and my emphasis...not that I'm such an amazing teacher, but....
      2) Pivotal lessons you know a student will miss because of extended illness, family trips, etc.
      3) Lessons with challenging content that learners may want to revisit
      4) Differentiated lessons: Tweak the lesson for advanced learners...add that extra you yourself can't resist that would motivate some, but totally confuse others; tweak the basic lesson for students who might need more support understanding the content.
       5) Lessons with challenging content that will be a part of homework. For instance, a new or novel math procedure the students will be expected to know that parents will not know...the webinar would also serve as parent education/information.
       6) Whole-class lesson delivered "individually" to students in the computer lab...would be a fun venue change-up that could enhance engagement
       7) Present, explain, publish instructions and expectations for long-term projects so students can review as needed...no excuses, no confusion
       8) Webcast class newsletters...teacher or student created

There would be just as many ways to use webinars with students:
       1) Reciprocal teaching...if you can teach it, you've learned it (so they say)
       2) Culminating project/presentation option...we are always wanting kids to "make videos," and then we struggle with establishing authentic audience...students could "recruit" their own authentic audience in much the same way I'm doing for my webinar. Parents wouldn't have to miss presentations because they couldn't get off work...
       3) Cross-classroom collaboration and communication...in-school and across the globe
       4) Periodic project updates written and delivered by students provided to parents.

Webcasts could really liven up classroom communication in so many different ways. Basically, if you are writing it, you can envision webcasting it. Hopefully, I can become adept enough at it to put it to at least a few of the good uses I can imagine. No doubt, there are several students out there who could take the reins and be my on-the-spot web producers...it would be a GAS to l earn to do this together!