Web Conferencing

On Sunday, March 20th, I attended a web conference as a requirement for a graduate school class. I have attended several web conferences in the past, mostly for meetings with people in different locations, but this was my first web conference for a course that is required for my degree.

In attempting to describe the conference, words are difficult to come by without sounding too harsh. Overwhelming. Disorganized. Crazy. It was pretty rough.

It did, however, spark some ideas for me to implement in the event that I conduct a web conference in the future.

1) Ensure that all participants understand the purpose of the conference ahead of time. This is common practice for in-person meetings, and it should be for online meetings, as well. A clearly defined purpose would alleviate confusion and save the moderator time because he/she will not have to explain the purpose over and over again.

2) Limit the number of participants to a small enough group that they can all participate. If you truly want to conference, I would suggest 15-20 people as a maximum. More than that and you are dealing with a web conference where people cannot keep up with the comments of others. Ultimately, conferences with more people than can actively participate are no longer "conferences." They become webinars with presenters disseminating information.

3) Esatablish a protocol. This should be adapted to fir the purposes of the conference, but some things to consider might be

• no one contributes until the moderator begins the session and asks for introductions.
• questions are taken in an organized manner (maybe alphabetically or in some numerical order)
• the moderator may implement a STOP command, when issued will tell all participants to stop posting and wait for others to catch up or for further directions.

Progress Report

In the 2010-2011 Texas Progress Report of the Long Range Technology Plan, the Executive Summary begins with a quote from a high school student: “Every time I go to school, I have to power down.” In my personal experience, this is too true. Many of my students feel like they have to cut themselves off from their friends, family, and the outside world in order to participate in school, but isn’t the very purpose of school to make our students better contributors to all of those groups? Under the guise of keeping order we are taking away the world that we plan to send students out into one day.

Would we be better serving kids if we taught them etiquette about such matters as facebook and cell phones? At my school, when a teacher sees a cell phone she is to take it, and it can only be returned to the student after a fine is paid. This sends the message that the cell phone is the enemy to learning and that we, as educators, are afraid of it. I think a different system is called for.

The long range plan for technology calls for the integration of technology into basically everything we do as educators to prepare students for a technological world. The hard and fast truth, however, is that the funding resources to provide all that technology just doesn't exist. Perhaps it is time to leverage the technology that students already come armed with in order to meet the goals of the State. Instead of saying to students, “Put away your technology and use mine,” we should say “What technology do you have and how can we leverage it toward greater learning today?”

Isn’t that the practical application that will most benefit them after graduation anyway?

National Educational Technology Plan

The concept of one-size fits all learning has long gone by the wayside. In my eight year teaching career, I have increasingly learned about various ways to individualize instruction, lately attending a conference on differentiating instruction. In the 21st century model of learning, a priority is placed on meeting learners where they are instead of trying to fit students into pre-made molds. Additionally, the plan requires that assessment is an on-going process, and that student needs are identified before they have failed a course or fallen drastically behind.


The model also includes using technology to build capacity for educators. While in the past educators have worked in the isolation of their own classrooms, 21st century teachers must go beyond the classroom to involve a global community in student learning to prepare students for a global workforce. Teachers must be comfortable moving beyond the confines of an individual classroom so that students can be comfortable moving beyond their own small worlds into the greater community.

Goals of the model include giving all learners an opportunity to participate in empowering experiences both within the classroom and beyond. Assessment should utilize technology in order to meet the changing needs of students, which will also reduce both physical and time waste. Professional educators should be connected outside the classroom to leverage the most cutting-edge resources to meet the needs of their learners, and the state must provide the infrastructure necessary to make that happen. Finally, technology should be used to refine the processes within our educational system to make them more effective and efficient.