Reflections on Extension 2.0 Webinar

 

Today, I did a Webinar called "10 Steps To Extension 2.0" for the National eXtension Institiative  I had some deja vu ...

I did my first presentation about the Internet when I started working with Arts Wire in 1993.  Arts Wire was patterned after the Well and was designed as an online conversation community for artists and arts organizations.  A UNIX based, text interface, later updated to be Web browser-based when the Web became more mainstream in 1995.  (Mozilla .09 was the first version I used)

Part of my job was to evangelize about the Internet and later the web - how artists should harness its power by getting an email address instead of using their fax machines!  Or participating in the online conversation on Arts Wire.   I would bring the laptop and plug into the phone line and do demos in small groups.   

But I was constantly faced with technical glitches, particularly with Internet access. There wouldn't be a local node or the phone had some weirdness that prevented me from dialing out successfully.   Remember that "aztex ascii garbage."?   And, there were times when situations happened that I had not anticipated .... Like the time I was doing a session in an artists loft and the phone jack was 150 feet away and my phone cord was only 125 feet.  And, after spending some time rearranging the room, the long cord wrecked havoc on the Internet connection.

So after detecting this pattern, I got smart.  I would bring along transparencies or overlays for the overhead project that would show a screenshot and a tape cassette player with a recording of a modem handshake (remember those?).   Then do an "online demonstration" as performance art.

Later as Internet access became more reliable and as those LCD projectors to project your laptop screen became more commonplace, I used to pack my shadow puppets, so when the connection to laptop fizzled or the Internet access wasn't working, I could reduce the stress in the room.  At one point, I knew how to make 8 different animal hand shadow puppets.

The classic technical glitch for me was doing a presentation at the Cloisters in NYC for a group of arts education teachers.  This was circa 1997.  I arrived two hours early.  And I had to tape flip chart paper over the windows so it would get dark enough to project the laptop to show the presentation.  Of course, the projector didn't work (did I mentioned that I had lugged the 50 pound projector up four flights of stairs ...)    What did I do?

I saw a black board in the corner of the room, wheeled it over and wrote the key words of the presentation and shared my favorite advice about issues of incorporating technology into your instructional practice:

"It isn't a matter of if technical glitches will happen, it's what are you going to do when they happen. You need to be prepared or be creative!  Don't let it throw you."   My Web2.0 version of that advice:  It's the same!

So in today's Webinar called "10 Steps To Extension 2.0" for the National eXtension Institiative  we lost the connection to the Web conference component -- and at one point almost 100 or so folks logged into the webinar had to re-enter, including me.   We got started about a half hour late.  No problem.   

Then the last 20 minutes or so, my Internet connection died.  Now, that has never happened.  Someone on the call had moderator access and was able to flip the slides (I had them memorized) and they also read any of the questions in the chat line to me.    A little like driving in a snow storm.  But it worked out, I think.

I could have done some things better with Webinar instructional practice  ... and I hoping some of my readers who have experience in delivering lots of Webinars will share some advice.

• First, my preferred method of instruction is to be more interactive and facilitate discussion.  That only works with small groups on the phone, fewer than 12 or 15 people, not 100.  The Webinar format which lends itself to lecture is out of my preference zone.   But, you can't teach the way you feel comfortable teaching all the time ... ?
  
• I think showing the Web 2.0 video and having people type themes into the chat worked.  Some themes the group identified:

• Flexibiity
• Editable
• Choices
• Creative
• Visual
• Interactive
• Colorful
• Sharing
• Collaborating
• Data easy to reuse
• Don't learn difficult technology first, wait until it becomes easier
• Immediacy
• Full of copyright issues
• People

I loved how these matched what I presented as the themes.   If I was in a room, live, I would have facilitated a brief conversation about the themes and interjected the themes into conversation - and then summarized them succintly with the slides.

• I used the chat as a backchannel and invited people to add questions or comments as we went along. I wasn't as smooth as I would have liked swtiching between my "scripted" remarks and incorporating people's questions in the chat line.  When I'm in the room, with a large group, I'm comfortable doing the interactive presentation or incorporating the audience's .   I wish I could learn how to do that more elegantly with the Webinar. 
• I had stopping points in the presentation for questions, but in the chat there would be fantastic question on the previous section and I had moved to the next section.  I need to pause longer or not stop and retrace.   But, there were great questions.  Darn, wish I found this excellent article in Guru's Handbook sooner ...
• I wanted to use more video examples, but only selected one that was more of a music video in case the audio didn't work.  (Note to self, look for a 2-3 minute video about one of the steps) The poll feature was great way to engage people and I wish I had thought though some more of those to incorporate along the way.
• I had too much content.  I knew I had too content.  My blog commenters told me I had too much content in my initial draft.  I cut stuff out, but I could have cut more.    Next time, maybe it's only 7 or 8 steps instead of 10.  Maybe not as many demos.
• The ten steps was originally tailored for a nonprofit technology and nonprofit audience -- so some of the examples were not as relevant to the audience as the new ones that I had researched.   For example, on the Step 2 which was about monitoring blog conversations as market research.  Someone said, "Extension work is research based, how do you incorporate this technique?"    In the comments, a few folks answered -- and I read the responses ..."You could get feedback on the questions you plan to ask on a survey or get feedback on some of the data that might make you think differently."
• There was one brilliant observer in the group.  I told Marnie's story about the Northern CA Homeless Group story and someone pointed out that the homeless photo I used was from Washington, DC.  (Note to self, change the location of that story)
• There questions about Internet safety issues, particularly how to incorporate the use of these tools with 4H tools.
• Make a slide at the end with contact information, wiki address, etc.

I am teaching two more sessions.  These are shorter sessions focused on tagging.  The first session will introduce tagging and social bookmarking and an exercise.  Participants will have two weeks to do the exercise and we'll write our reflections on a wiki.  So, need to take what I learned from this session into that as well as learn how to use Media Wiki.   Thank goddness Beth Raney has this tutorial.

 

Update:  Kevin suggests that I create a Webinar called "Tips for Technology Meltdowns for Technology Educators"

Comments

[Anne Adrian]

Beth, you did a great job with presenting Extension 2.0 (http://extension20.wikispaces.com/) to a very large web conference audience under some very rough technical glitches. Your description of teaching a Unix-based system reminds me when I was teaching our county staff mandatory training in the very late 1980s on our new wide-area network Unix-based system with menu systems for email. The all day mandatory training (not nearly as enjoyable as training by choice) was their introduction to networking, email, newsgroups, and text based Unix system. I was within the first hour of the training when the power went out. I taught for the next two hours with no power, no connection, and no projector. The very positive side of this technical outage was that the participants really learned the conceptual view of their new network making the actual hands-on training a breeze.

Extension professionals are often hit with surprises when they conduct their programs. They are not only passionate about teaching and helping people but they are also very flexible--you would make for a great Extension specialist!

I thought your presentation went very well, the only thing I have to offer for suggestions is to incorporate Extension examples or possible Extension future uses. For instance, a county office could create its own social tagging like King County (http://del.icio.us/KingCounty) has created.

Another possibility is group blogging where posting is shared by a few experts who work in the same topic area, such as urban entomologists who are located in different universities.

Again great job! Anne Adrian www.aafromaa.com

[Anne Adrian]

I just found a very good example of an Extension professional blog within a traditional program area. Master Your Garden is about home horticulture is Western North Carolina.