What a relief...My mini conference is now over. Phew. And thankfully no major dramas, no technical issues and people actually turned up....you could almost call that a success.
I managed to get onto elluminate early and load up photos of both myself and my guest speaker Fiona. All that is easy stuff now. I ensured I had my microphone and headset to help with clarity of my voice, and went through the audio set up. I had spoken to Fiona in the morning again and we discussed some of the discussions that could take place. Initially I had a panic attack at the thought that I didn't have any slides or power points to present but after talking it through with Fiona we decided that 1. it was too late anyway and 2. it would be a short presentation where Fiona could present some of the tools on elluminate. This would encourage engagement and discussion. In hindsight I think that having no slides added a freshness that benefited our session.
I had 5 participants attend, made up of one of my students, one colleague, one midwife friend and two participants from the facilitating online class. So with my lecturer and guest presenter there were 8 all up. A great number. I started my recording, and began my introduction. I think I was good at fooling everyone about how nervous I really was. The recording link to my session is below;
http://elluminate.tekotago.ac.nz/play_recording_confirmation.html
Everything went really smoothly, the only hiccup I had was that I could not chat to 'everyone' only staff members. I trouble shooted for a while and then asked Sarah. Eventually she came to my rescue to clicking on my name where the chat icon comes up and problem fixed. Listening back to the recording I said a lot of 'um' though. I was not aware of how often I said 'um' until I listened. Ha. I also stopped the recording too soon, as even though I had started to close up the session, people then continued to make comments and discuss. So for next time I think the recording will be the very last thing I do.
Another thing I learnt was about planning the time and length of a session. I had anticipated that the session would be short and only go for 15mins. However even without discussing all of the things Fiona and I talked about it still went for over half an hour. I guess that is the nature of discussions.
After the event I had a chat with Sarah. We came up with the plan to see if we could get some feedback from some of the participants on how the session went. So I will email the participants I know and see if I can get some honest feedback posted to my blog.
Keep you posted.
Jade
Saturday, November 13, 2010
Wednesday, November 10, 2010
Counting down to mini conference
Tomorrow is D Day for my mini conference.... Will it be a success? Will anyone turn up? Will 100 people turn up? Have I set it up correctly? Will there be technical difficulties?? Who knows??
I have arranged my presenter which is great. She appears very relaxed and understands what I am doing and more importantly what her role is. Unfortunately the first presenter I asked, although she was keen, we were unable to find a day that suited us both.. Nevermind.
So I have created the elluminate session. Hopefully correctly... I am a bit nervous about this now, especially in regards to who I have made staff members??? I have emailed the link onto google groups and onto our mini conference platform. I have also sent it to my students who I thought might be able to provide moral support and bring a student perspective at what motivates them online.
I have had to email the facilitators of another session which finishes at 12pm, as my session starts at 12pm... Just to let them know so hopefully they can keep to time.
Unfortunately I have been unable to attend other sessions. I have just got back from Sydney on Monday and worked for 16 hours at the hospital yesterday... Shattered. It has been a real juggle with working two jobs, studying, being a mum, buying and selling a house, and just to top it off my partner is having surgery on monday.... So I am a little unsure that I am tracking along as others in the class are. I have an huntch that I am probably down the line of the online facilitating spectrum calibre, however I have learnt a load...
I guess Ihave learnt too, that it doesn'thave to be a huge undertaking however. That facilitating well can make those subtle and gentle differences that possibly nobody notices. I can compare it to the sporting arena. Like when the defence do all the work, but go unnoticed as they are not the ones scoring the points... Which is great.
Well I might write again tomorrow morning if there is another update, otherwise I will post my reflection on how the event went.... Fingers crossed.
I have arranged my presenter which is great. She appears very relaxed and understands what I am doing and more importantly what her role is. Unfortunately the first presenter I asked, although she was keen, we were unable to find a day that suited us both.. Nevermind.
So I have created the elluminate session. Hopefully correctly... I am a bit nervous about this now, especially in regards to who I have made staff members??? I have emailed the link onto google groups and onto our mini conference platform. I have also sent it to my students who I thought might be able to provide moral support and bring a student perspective at what motivates them online.
I have had to email the facilitators of another session which finishes at 12pm, as my session starts at 12pm... Just to let them know so hopefully they can keep to time.
Unfortunately I have been unable to attend other sessions. I have just got back from Sydney on Monday and worked for 16 hours at the hospital yesterday... Shattered. It has been a real juggle with working two jobs, studying, being a mum, buying and selling a house, and just to top it off my partner is having surgery on monday.... So I am a little unsure that I am tracking along as others in the class are. I have an huntch that I am probably down the line of the online facilitating spectrum calibre, however I have learnt a load...
I guess Ihave learnt too, that it doesn'thave to be a huge undertaking however. That facilitating well can make those subtle and gentle differences that possibly nobody notices. I can compare it to the sporting arena. Like when the defence do all the work, but go unnoticed as they are not the ones scoring the points... Which is great.
Well I might write again tomorrow morning if there is another update, otherwise I will post my reflection on how the event went.... Fingers crossed.
Tuesday, November 2, 2010
Planning for mini conference and quadratice equations!
Hi again,
Well as I had no idea what WizIQ was, I decided to check it out. There was a public session about to run on 'quadratic equations'.. Hmmmm. This could or more likely could not be of any interest to me, so after some pondering I decided to give it a miss and listen to the recording of Nelly Deutsch on evaluation strategies in Wiz IQ. It is great for me to realise that there is more than one option when it comes to synchonised interaction. As I have been working on elluminate, it is easy to become comfortable with that platform and become adverse or scared of another. Initially I wanted to get a presenter for my mini conference to discuss all the specific tools available on elluminate. However I believe I have learnt that one needs not to be afraid and that most of these platforms are user friendly and not that scary, with similar but slightly different ways of doing things. After talking this over with Sarah I have decided to change my focus on elluminate and instead focus on encouraging student interaction with synchonised arenas.
So that is the plan. A mini conference on elluminate with the topic on 'how to encourage student engagement in the synchonious environments online'. Colleagues have generously said they will present for me if I needed someone which is great and I do have colleagues that have had some good experience within the synchonous environment, but they are all about as new to this as I am so perhaps it would be better to get someone with a bit more experience? I have asked a senior lecturer if she would mind being a guest presenter. I explained the requirements of the course and the mini conference plan and said it need not be long (<10mins) presentation and informed her of the date of 12th November. I let her know what my initial plan was but said I would be interested in what thoughts she had about what would be a good idea/topic. She told me she would have to have a think about it as she is very busy right now and would get back to me.... Fingers crossed... I guess a back up plan though will be my friendly colleagues in Wellington.. We just won't tell them they are my second choice.
So basically I have half chosen the topic, the date, the time, although these can be worked around according to the presenter. I have a few presenter options.
Next I need to think about advertising my event. I have advertised it within the online facilitating mini conference page, but also thought I could advertise to some students as they might give another beneficial perspective. I have also thought about advertising it to some of my family members..don't know why.??
I feel much more confident now about creating a session on elluminate as Sarah has shown me through this.. Easy once you know how. I will formulate my introduction once I can confirm my presenter. I need to think about how am I going to plan for or manage technical difficulties and issues around attendance (perhaps that is why I will invite family?). The easy answer to technical difficulties is to have someone experienced in attendance such as my lecturer to help and give pointers or tips if I need. Also to have the more experienced presenter would help in that regard too. Last time, and luckily I was early for it, others told me my microphone had a hum.. The advised trying my head phones and mic on as oppossed to just the computer mic and that made all the difference. But there is always what I don't know that I don't know.
Anyway, I plan to keep you posted. I plan to attend another classmates conference too. Sharons event on cultural competence online sounds good.
Jade
Well as I had no idea what WizIQ was, I decided to check it out. There was a public session about to run on 'quadratic equations'.. Hmmmm. This could or more likely could not be of any interest to me, so after some pondering I decided to give it a miss and listen to the recording of Nelly Deutsch on evaluation strategies in Wiz IQ. It is great for me to realise that there is more than one option when it comes to synchonised interaction. As I have been working on elluminate, it is easy to become comfortable with that platform and become adverse or scared of another. Initially I wanted to get a presenter for my mini conference to discuss all the specific tools available on elluminate. However I believe I have learnt that one needs not to be afraid and that most of these platforms are user friendly and not that scary, with similar but slightly different ways of doing things. After talking this over with Sarah I have decided to change my focus on elluminate and instead focus on encouraging student interaction with synchonised arenas.
So that is the plan. A mini conference on elluminate with the topic on 'how to encourage student engagement in the synchonious environments online'. Colleagues have generously said they will present for me if I needed someone which is great and I do have colleagues that have had some good experience within the synchonous environment, but they are all about as new to this as I am so perhaps it would be better to get someone with a bit more experience? I have asked a senior lecturer if she would mind being a guest presenter. I explained the requirements of the course and the mini conference plan and said it need not be long (<10mins) presentation and informed her of the date of 12th November. I let her know what my initial plan was but said I would be interested in what thoughts she had about what would be a good idea/topic. She told me she would have to have a think about it as she is very busy right now and would get back to me.... Fingers crossed... I guess a back up plan though will be my friendly colleagues in Wellington.. We just won't tell them they are my second choice.
So basically I have half chosen the topic, the date, the time, although these can be worked around according to the presenter. I have a few presenter options.
Next I need to think about advertising my event. I have advertised it within the online facilitating mini conference page, but also thought I could advertise to some students as they might give another beneficial perspective. I have also thought about advertising it to some of my family members..don't know why.??
I feel much more confident now about creating a session on elluminate as Sarah has shown me through this.. Easy once you know how. I will formulate my introduction once I can confirm my presenter. I need to think about how am I going to plan for or manage technical difficulties and issues around attendance (perhaps that is why I will invite family?). The easy answer to technical difficulties is to have someone experienced in attendance such as my lecturer to help and give pointers or tips if I need. Also to have the more experienced presenter would help in that regard too. Last time, and luckily I was early for it, others told me my microphone had a hum.. The advised trying my head phones and mic on as oppossed to just the computer mic and that made all the difference. But there is always what I don't know that I don't know.
Anyway, I plan to keep you posted. I plan to attend another classmates conference too. Sharons event on cultural competence online sounds good.
Jade
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