Web-Conference+Reflections

June 16, 6:00

Tonight's web conference had close to 40 people in it, but ran pretty smoothly considering the amount of people. Dr. Abernathy cleared up some questions about what should be in our Comprehensive Exam and also on our E-portfolio. She also answered questions on the types of headings to use for APA style, which our comprehensive exam should be written in. She let us know that an updated version of the Internship Handbook (version 3.1) was on the discussion board for week 4 with updates for the course-embedded assignments. Many questions were asked and answered by Dr. Abernathy and she made it quite clear that she wanted to support us and help us all graduate. The conference lasted about 40 minutes.

June 8, 6:00

Tonight’s web conference was slow to get under way as we had over 40 attendees. The conference was filled with technical difficulties as the audio was cutting out and the video wasn’t working the first 10 minutes or so. Apart from the technical difficulties, the session focused on APA style and format. Dr. Abernathy gave us a link to a free program that basically put your paper into APA style for you—which is awesome!! This will take a lot of stress out of trying to edit our papers and help us focus on the content. She did emphasize the importance of the headers and that we should be familiar with at least Level I-Level III. Dr. A then took and answered all class questions over everything from our field-based activity logs to what we should have in our e-portfolio. She continued to encourage us to ask questions, email her, and check the discussion posts in the courseware.

May 27, 8:00 

I attended a web-conference last night for the Web Development and Design Class (5-27) and it went very well. There were over 50 attendees and the audio worked well most of the time. There were only a few times it cut out, but that is amazing for the number of people we had attending. Since this was the first web conference for this class, there were a lot of questions about the textbooks we need for the class and the first week assignment over designing a web policy. This was the first web conference I attended where I was not a presenter, which was fine. The conference mainly consisted of Dr. Abshire introducing herself and apologized for the textbook notification not going out. She extended the deadline for the first week assignment, noted that she had made some changes to the existing course which was taught by another professor, but emphasized that the course will still maintain its rigor and relevance to our master's program. The rest of the web-conference was directed like a Q & A session. Dr. Abshire did her best to answer all of our questions, while not dwelling on one particular area. I think it was one of the better web conferences I have attended, as it was not fraught with technical problems and issues.

February 5, 7:30  During this master’s program, we have had many opportunities to participate in web-conferences regularly. We had to get a pair of headphones with a microphone in order to participate. The first web conference I attended was in February of this year. It was not as I expected as the sound kept coming in and out and it was very frustrating for both the presenter and the learners. We were able to ask questions about assignments and make clarifications on directions. That first web conference made me realize that if we are going to work with technology, it’s not ALWAYS going to work the way you want it to ALL THE TIME! There are just some things you cannot control. After the first web conference, I was hesitant to attend another one, but they definitely got better over time.

I really like the format of the web-conference because it gives students a chance to see and interact with each other and the instructor synchronously, which is somewhat difficult to do in a completely online setting such as this. The web conference allows us to clarify instructions or directions given in assignments, ask questions about future classes (like the internship), hear the questions or concerns of our fellow classmates, and directly interact with the instructor. They have been especially helpful in giving us direction for the internship class.

Although using web-conferencing may have its technical difficulties from time to time, it is an essential aspect of any online course to provide a forum for synchronous interaction between classmates and instructors.