Web+Conferences

I had an opportunity to participate in the first web conference Wednesday, November 17th. It is funny how some things never change. Questions are asked and answered and repeated several times throughout the night. Makes you wonder if some of our students in the Master's program are not ADD like my students in the classroom. I answer the same questions five times or more throughout a ten minute time frame. Or could it be that our Lamar students are not happy with the answer and are hoping to change the outcome?
 * Week 1 Assignment, Part 1.1: Web Conferences **


 * Week 2 Assignment, Part 1.1: Web Conferences--Organization and Management of Assignments **

In Lamar’s Master’s program, we are required to attend webinars. In the beginning of my journey, I enjoyed the novelty of attending webinars since this was my first experience with webinars. Ten classes later and several webinars, I have come to dread some of them. Although my favorite webinars have been in EDLD 5364 Teaching with Technology (Dr. Mason) and EDLD 5301 Research (Dr. Elvis Arterbury & Dr. Steve Jenkins). Dr. Arterbury & Dr. Jenkins’ conferences were informative and comical at times. On the other hand, Dr. Mason’s webinars were always very informative and Tuesday’s conference was no exception. Dr. Mason conducts her conferences with professionalism and patience. She is readily available to students, tries to provide immediate feedback, and is always posting answers to questions on the Discussion Board for others to benefit. I think more importantly is her genuine sincerity in wanting all her students to succeed. I believe Lamar students in the Educational Technology Leadership program are a special breed of people; it was evident in this conference. Several students were sharing best practices, resources and some offered their email for further collaboration. What a great team!

//Personal Note: When I began formulating thoughts for my reflections, for some reason “the repeated questions” was a recurring thought. I guess because it is an issue in my classroom that I haven’t been able to solve until now. Midway into writing my reflection, I had an epiphany on how to solve the questions in my classroom. //
 * Week 3 Assignment, Part 3.1: Web Conference **

Why do we have so many questions? Why is it difficult to following directions on formatting? Is it because we are looking for the easy way out or we want to be in control? I notice that the questions asked are the same ones each week: <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif;">· How many references do we need? <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif;">· What font should we be using? <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif;">· Can I use Arial on my wiki? <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif;">· Do we send emails when we have made corrects?

<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif;">Yet each week Dr. Mason patiently answers the same questions. I feel a little guilty because I don’t show the same patience with my students when they asked the same question for the 100th time. I try to be proactive by writing the assignment on the board for clarification. Yet, I will still have students question about the assignment. I like the idea that Dr. Mason has implemented, posting on the Discussion Board reoccurring questions and her answers to those questions. That is something I will have to try in my 5th grade class, designative a “Q & A” Discussion Wall. I did implement something similar but it did not take off. Maybe I could keep my Smart Board on for 15 minutes into independent practice for the “Q & A” session. Students can facilitate the “Q & A” session while I work with my student who can’t read and my inclusion students. I feel torn because I take time away from my class to work with my special needs students and/or take time from my special needs students to reiterate instructions to my class. <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif;">I might begin with my GT or high students manning the “Q & A” to see how that works out. Again, this might motivate my ADD students (who are not on medications) to focus during the lesson to be able to participate in the “Q & A”.


 * <span style="color: #000080; font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 160%;">Week 4 Assignment, Part 4.1: Web Conference **

**<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 11pt;">Tonight we had a group from Portland State University observing our web conference. Apparently they are considering web conferences in their program. Normally we have a larger presence unlike tonight’s small group. Questions asked were a repeat from previous conferences. I guess these people missed the answers to their questions in previous weeks. I don’t think we made a good impression, if only they had attended previous sessions. **



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