Web Conference 1/29/12

Web Conferences can be very valuable. We use them in my district. Our district is big and we have seventeen middle schools. Our content coordinator has meetings over Adobe Connect. I will admit at first I was not really ready for this type of learning. I found it hard to concentrate and wanted to “play” with the new technology. I learned quickly that I really had to pay attention. Not everyone attends this meeting and it is up to me to get together with my team and share the information with them. They are counting on me to share the information accurately. I think it really helps with our group not having to leave their home campuses when we have meetings. It is respectful of our time and schedules. I think that is why it is perfect for our purposes in the Lamar Program. It allows us to get together with our fellow students and teachers and really help each other out. During the web conference that I attended there was a lot of students helping other students. It made you feel good to know that others had similar questions to the ones that you had. The biggest take away from the web conference is that I really understand my power as a teacher. We really do have power to get new technologies in the hands of our students. I remember a few years ago we could not access YouTube. Now we can. It took many teachers asking for it. Our district technology people allowed us access to it. It is wonderful. I teach history and many of the things that we talk about are all over the country and most of my students have not visited those places. Now I can describe the place and show them the place with YouTube. Teachers have to be vigilant in our work. The work that our students will do in the future have not been invented yet, so it is up to us to use new things like technology to prepare students with skills that will be marketable in the future.