Web+Conference+review

The web conferences used in throughout our Master's in Educational Leadership program have been beneficial in providing us with information that we do not understand. I do not think I would be able to finish some of the courses that I have taken without the help and support that I have gotten in the web conferences. The web conferences do help us by giving clarity in assignment instructions where there other wise were none. It also provides people who have struggled with assignments to ask questions to their peers who are responsible for the same assignment. I do think that the web conferences have a lot of room for improvement. They would be much more beneficial if those involved in the meeting were required to follow a set of rules to manage the time more efficiently. The abundance of irrelevant conversation that takes place in the chat of the conferences has actually caused me to stop participating. It is hard enough to follow a question and answer without all of the "how are yous", "great job's" and "Thank You" comments. I realize we are a community and we are there to help each other, but when 10 people say great job it causes the rest of the readers to have to scroll around to find their place in the conversation. I also wish that the use of this tool was actually taught in a class. I recently experimented with Adobe Connect with an ITS at my school and was impressed with the amount of collaboration we were able to have. In the large group settings that we use it is difficult to use this tool to its full extent. In past web conferences that I have missed I have found the recordings to be very chopped up. The problem with this is that not everything that is said is typed. If you missed the conference you may not get the needed information. In summary, I definitely see the value in the web conferences, but wish those participating were more focused on staying on the topic at hand.

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