Some Thoughts on Webinars

Yesterday I joined 170 other people in a webinar about "Technology Competencies for Library Staff." While it turned out to be more of a "how to start developing competencies and how to introduce training to the staff" rather than actual competencies, they did give links to manuals that had the competencies in them. It is interesting to note that the issues that plague schools are also present in libraries.

The webinar was free. You logged on to the site around 10 minutes ahead of time. You were supposed to run a test first to see if everything worked on your computer. (I had to install a newer version of Quicktime.) You could see the presenters screen. It looked like a Mimio or Smartboard to me. You could enter in messages like a chat room. Another feature I liked was that you could turn on closed captioning.

At first the audience had access to and could use the tools on the board. For example, you could write on the board and even clear the screen. The presenters asked people not to do this after the presentation started but someone kept doing it. They were writing comments on the screen while the presenter was talking. It was RUDE!!! Finally they turned off the audience control. I couldn't believe that grown-ups would behave this way.

Here is a link to the webinar
http://www.webjunction.org/do/DisplayContent?id=17556

It works differently than Sirsidynix but is similar.

Here is a link to the mission statement of WebJunction
http://www.webjunction.org/do/Navigation?category=14862


Debbie