Web Conference Reflections

I attended the first web conference for this course. It was a new experience for me. I have not used this feature in any of my previous courses and other than playing around with video chat on a few occasions when setting up a new computer, haven't used the web cam at all. I honestly saw no benefit for this type of equipment. I was mistaken. I did not extensively participate in the web discussion, but I can see how it could be used effectively. One of the reasons for my lack of action in the first conference was because of the large audience. I spent so much time looking at other peoples questions that I did not pose many of my own. Other students were asking questions that I was interested in so I saw no need to crowd up the board any more that it already was. I think that the best way to maximize participation in students would be to reduce the number of participant to a more manageable size. To use this in the classroom setting would be easy to do. I can see it being a weekly assignment that the students could participate in. I think they would welcome a chance to use this technology and would be willing to spend some of their free time to ask questions and be socially active at the same time. I think school is headed this way and the sooner teachers become comfortable with this type of learning the better they will be able to guide their students in the proper directions.