This week I had the opportunity to host a live webcast. While this was probably a brand-new experience for most of my classmates, this is something that I do almost daily at my job as an online teacher! I am very accustomed to hosting live webinars (my school calls them "Live Lessons") for my students. After my students have read through their lesson content or completed required activities, we go through the lesson content and reinforce key vocabulary, concepts, and skills. We also play review games to prepare for unit tests, explore websites together, hold writing workshops and literature circle discussions, and complete science demonstrations and experiments. I use my webcam and a microphone headset to ensure my students can see and hear me, and students can communicate and interact in the webcast by using their own microphones at home or typing comments and questions on the screen.
So while hosting a live webcast was not a new experience in general, it was new for me to host one for a group of peers instead of students. While I'm very comfortable presenting webcasts to my students by now, I have to admit that I was a little nervous about presenting in front of my friends. It's a whole different experience presenting for a group of peers and appearing calm, composed, and organized!
Since I love to bake desserts, I decided to do a cooking demonstration in my webcast. In my idealistic mind, I pictured the webcast looking something like an episode of Giada at Home, but I should have known better! I gave it my best shot, though! I started off by emailing my closest friends and posting the date, time, and topic of my webcast on Facebook. I tried to tempt my Facebook friends to attend my webcast with offers of the recipe and tips on making my great aunt's Peanut Butter Cream Pie, which friends and coworkers routinely request that I bring to potlucks and parties. I made my initial post on Monday, repeated it on Wednesday, and then made one final plea for attendees on Friday morning (a few hours before the live broadcast). While I think my reminders were effective, I only had three friends who were able to attend.
Before my official live webcast, I spent some time investigating the website I would be using to broadcast my cooking demonstration. I am accustomed to using Adobe Connect for my class webcasts, so I decided to use something different for this assignment. I tried using Go To Meeting with the new "HDFaces" video conferencing, which I have seen countless commericals for recently. I spent some time during the week familiarizing myself with the features. While it had many of the same features and capabilities as Adobe Connect (microphone connectivity, chat log, "show my screen"), it was set up differently than what I was used to. Most of the learning curve for me with Go To Meeting came from just learning how to connect my microphone and turn it on and figuring out how to share my screen and broadcast my webcam. After spending an entire afternoon playing around with it and doing a few test broadcasts, I felt pretty comfortable that I knew what I was doing. I was even able to send out an email invite containing my meeting ID.
When the big day for my live webcast arrived, I was a little nervous but ready. I spent time making sure I had all of my ingredients and materials ready, and I also did a few tests with my webcam to make sure my camera would be lined up just right to best capture the demonstration. Once my attendees arrived and typed in their greetings, we were ready to go! My main regret is that I forgot to record the presentation. Just as I was about to begin, my dog started barking in the background. After shooting frantic telepathic messages to my fiance to grab the dog and take him upstairs, I was a little flustered and eager to start my presentation off with a smooth greeting. In my haste, I completely forgot to start the recording.
Even so, the webinar went fairly smoothly. I started off by making sure my webcam was broadcasting a live video and audio feed. Then, I introduced my demonstration by explaining that I'd be showing them how to make Peanut Butter Cream Pie, a recipe that has been in my family for at least three generations now. I was able to click the "Show My Screen" button and share the ingredients list (which I had previously typed up on a PowerPoint slide) on the screen. Then, I cut back to the video feed and got to work. While using my webcam and laptop's built-in microphone, I put all of the previously prepared ingredients together (including a pre-baked pie crust). I showed and explained step-by-step how to complete the recipe. At the end of the webcast, I displayed the final product (freshly garnished with whipped cream!) for the camera and explained that it now needed to be placed in the refrigerator to cool before serving. At that point, I opened up the webcast for questions. All three typed comments into the chat log about wanting to eat the pie or complimenting its delicious appearance. One of them, who happens to be a coworker, was brave enough to try to connect her microphone to ask a question, but she had trouble figuring out how to connect it properly. Unfortunately, we couldn't hear her. It made both of us laugh because this is a problem we routinely encounter with students trying to use their microphones during our class webcasts. In the end, she typed her question, which I was able to answer for her. I thanked my three attendees for taking time out of their busy days to come to my webcast and let them know I'd be following up with the promised recipe in an email later that afternoon.
Overall, this was a fun experience, even though it wasn't necessarily new to me. I overcame my trepidation of presenting to my peers and actually had fun pretending to be Martha Stewart on my webcam. While I will definitely stick with using the Adobe Connect software that my school has purchased for our use and requires for our class webcasts, it was interesting to try out a different broadcasting tool. The only real challenge I encountered was the microphone issue with one of my attendees. If I were to use Go To Meeting in the future, I would want to first figure out how attendees use their microphones so that I could offer more guidance in the case of technical issues. I might also consider using the phone conference option that allows all participants to call a conference line while simultaneously viewing the online visual presentation.
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