Sue Waters

Lets see – at home. Can clean house? Wash dishes? Wash clothes? Do gardening? Or I join an Elluminate session and watch Philip facilitate an interactive online professional development (he shows the participants in the virtual classroom what to do then they have to do it on their computers e.g. set up their own iGoogle). Lets see – housework and gardening sound boring (oh well what’s another day of mess?).

I learnt a lot from Philip when I joined his f2f session the other week (that was the day I went out and discovered that someone had stolen half of the Cathedral). Philip has to incorporate effective communication (Google Talk) and virtual classroom (Elluminate) because participants are spread from Albany (415 km south of Perth) to Geraldton (424 km north of Perth) and it is not practical to deliver the training f2f.

Philip is definitely brave. I have been using Elluminate for over a year on a fortnightly basis with my online aquaculture students but have never tried to use it to teach people how to use technology. This is a considerably greater challenge than a PowerPoint and brainstorming with participants in an Elluminate session. But with the right strategies and balance this is a really powerful tool that I could use for facilitating staff e-learning professional development.

This is what I gained from Philip in this session:

• He runs the same session f2f one week prior to the Elluminate session so that he can make adjustments to his delivery and handouts
• Participants are told to print off and review the detailed handouts for the session prior to the Elluminate session
• Inability to see how participants are coping is an issue a facilitator. He did get a participant to application share so he could see where they were at. Probably worth setting up breakout rooms for each participants; sending each participant to their own room; getting them to turn on application sharing; and then he can move between each room and check their progress, assisting where necessary.

UPDATE

Philip and I just tested creating Breakout rooms & practiced moving between the rooms. We were able to easy share each others desktop and were both able to control/use each others applications when the participant shared the application. What we don’t know is whether each participant will be able to have application sharing running in each breakout room. I will be interested to hear the outcome.

Maybe Coach Carole has some more tips for us?

NOTE

Anyone can get their own free Elluminate vRoom – access anytime – up to 4 participants

CHECK OUT THE GREAT ONLINE VIDEO SITE

He also showcased some really great video hosting site. I am really impressed with videojug – they host “how to do” videos. Really good quality videos. Their cooking videos also have the menu and instructions written below the videos. They even have a how to give a homie handshake? Are they serious? Honestly watching how to give a homie handshake is worth it for getting a laugh (maybe if I can master this handshake I can be truly cool).