1. Develop a Process Agenda/Script

Prior to hosting a webinar, it’s essential to pencil out a script or process agenda, which details the roles and responsibilities of all presenter(s), facilitator(s), and moderator(s).  Things to include in the script are outlining: who will introduce each presenter, who will facilitate the chat and/or audio Q&A, how and when the Q&A will occur, who will record the session, and who will advance slides for a PowerPoint.  Also, add a timeline in minutes so moderators can verbally queue presenters when they are approaching the end of their allotted time.

2. Takes 1-2-3: Practice, Practice, Practice

If you are new to hosting a webinar, the best way to get comfortable in the virtual environment is to find a couple of buddies to practice using the features. Schedule a mock session with your practice partners, sending them a personal invitation and designating one as a presenter and one as a participant. Then test out the features you may use, like:
•    giving the floor to one another
•    posting  public and private chat messages
•    sharing desktop applications
•    launching a feedback poll
•    advancing slides in a PowerPoint
•    recording the session

You may need to practice several times before you know what settings are appropriate, such as how you’ll set up the audio muting and the alert sounds, as well as, what controls participants will have in manipulating their desktop.

Once you’re familiar with arranging the meeting room space, the next step is to schedule a Trial Run with the facilitators and presenter(s) about one week prior to going live. The purpose of the trial session is to give presenters an opportunity to practice using the features and address questions regarding their content, and to ensure everyone understands their roles and responsibilities outlined in the process agenda.

3. Upload Presenter Photos

Participants like to see who’s talking.  Encourage your presenters to upload their photos to be displayed during the live presentation. If presenters don’t have a professional photo readily available, ask them to get a colleague to take their snapshot using a cell phone photo that they can email to the moderator to upload to the room.

Alternatively, you can use the webcam feature to display real-time video feeds of presenters, facilitators, and moderators.  Be aware that video is a bandwidth drain and can result in delays in visual feeds. To prevent lag time, it’s best to turn the video feature off once the main presentation begins.

4. Arrive Early

Ask presenters and facilitators to join the session at least 10 minutes early to make sure everyone can log in, to check that the audio and recording features are functioning, and to run through a checklist of role and responsibility reminders. This includes ensuring everyone has backup printouts or displays of the presentation materials, that they have fluid to combat dry mouth, and all noise distractions are eliminated.

5. The Role of the Moderator

The moderator plays a key role in the success of a webinar. A moderator acts as the host by welcoming everyone, introducing individuals, instructing the audience in using the online features, and closing the session. A moderator must also provide technical assistance to the presenter(s) and to the audience before and during a live session.

It’s essential for a moderator to exude an upbeat confident attitude at all times, especially when technical issues arise, in order to calm the nerves of presenters and participants alike. Moderators must be comfortable in prompting folks either by chat or audio to put their phones on mute when there are distracting noises. Please note that when new participants join the Webinar, they will not be able to see any chat messages posted before their arrival; therefore, you may need to enter the directions to mute multiple times.  Moderators should be ready to advance slides or display presentation materials in the event a presenter’s computer or network is failing.  Additionally, they must be able to make quick decisions when tech issues arise with no workable solutions. For example, let’s say the power goes out and everyone is booted out of the online meeting room. A good moderator will quickly shift gears and provide instructions to presenters and participants on how folks will engage in an audio-only mode of communication.

6. Make Presentation Documents Available Prior to Going Live

Unexpected things happen when using webinar technologies. Sometimes presenters are unable to log in to the meeting space and/or participants may be dialing in from cell phones only. To ensure participants who are only connected via the audio teleconference can fully engage in the session, it’s important to send presentation materials ahead of time so these attendees can follow along.  This includes inserting page numbers on presentation slides and requesting that presenters indicate periodically what slide number they are on throughout their presentation.

7. Establish Webinar Ground Rules

To set the tone of the meeting it’s important to provide guidelines for how people are to interact with one another. Instruct the audience in how they are to mute their phones and when to do so, and provide the contact information of the person they need to contact in case of technical difficulties.  You can display the ground rules on a slide presentation. Alternatively, you can use looping slides to communicate small pieces of key information.

8. Instruct Participants

After establishing the ground rules, share screen shots of the online meeting features and instruct the audience on how they are to use the chat and polling options, and how they can enlarge their screen view. Below is a screenshot of the Ilinc Chat Pod feature and brief descriptions of its components.

9. Be Aware of Lag Time

When conducting real-time desktop sharing, you must be aware of visual feed displays. If there are over 50 participants in a session, the Internet connection may slow, which can lead to visual images lagging behind the audio. It’s helpful to determine the delay time.  This can be done with the help of the moderator or the participants. The presenter can ask if participants are experiencing visual delays, and if they are to post a chat message with the number of seconds the images are delayed. When there is a defined lag time, such as three seconds, the next time the presenter goes to another page, (s)he can simply pause three seconds before speaking about the new page of information.

10. Engage Your Audience Frequently

Pull your participants out of the passive mode by inviting them to think, participate, and mentally apply the ideas being shared.  Presenters should plan to ask the audience questions every 6-10 minutes. One effective way to do this is to develop multiple-choice, yes/no, or true/false questions that are integrated within a slide presentation.  Below is an example of participant engagement multi-choice question that was used on a recent Signetwork Evaluators’ Webinar focused on using Goal Attainment Scales. Participants used the Ilinc polling features to submit their responses.

In Parting…

A friend recently told me that preparing for a webinar is much like producing a TV show. I would have to agree. There are a lot of behind the scenes things to take into consideration. Give yourself plenty of time to prepare and practice, remember to keep a positive attitude, and as they say in the theatre biz ‘break a leg’!

Other Sources on Webinar Hosting:

Tips for Delivering a Successful Online Experience. By Richard Watson, Technical Trainer and Instructional Designer. Elearn Magazine

15 Tips for Webinars: How to Add Impact When You Present Online. By Patricia Fripp, CSP, CPAE. Elearn Magazine

Tips for Effective Webinars. By Maria H. Andersen. January 21, 2010
Elearn Magazine

Wikis were created as a way to share development of documents across a divide of time and geography, and certainly, they fill that bill.  As I mentioned in the earlier post, most wikis now include at least basic editing capabilities, making writing very similar to typical word processing.  More sophisticated wikis (or perhaps, the paid versions of wikis) allow uploading documents created in word processing applications with all the formatting intact.  Even simple wiki applications usually allow cutting and pasting from word processing applications, although the finished product may require some tweaking to remove odd bits that show up on screen.

Wikis’ history feature allows writers to  see where changes in the most current version were added, and which user added them.  More sophisticated wiki applications also allow version comparisions.

All these elements were part of the functionality envisioned by the happy techies who first dreamed up the wiki concept. The collaborative functionality of wikis doesn’t stop with document creation, though.  Wikis have become playgrounds of thought, planning, problem-solving and growth for all sorts of groups, even ones in close proximity to one another on a daily basis.  One such example is provided by the staff of the Schlegel Road Elementary School in Webster, New York.

Schlegel staff take their responsibility to students very seriously.  As a staff, they have worked to become knowledgeable and competent in the delivery of instruction that results in positive student outcomes.  Because they’ve been successful in achieving good outcomes for ALL their students including students with disabilities, they’ve been recognized by the Supporting Successful Strategies To Achieve Improved Results (S3TAIR) Project, which is New York’s  State Personnel Development Grant project.  Schlegel staff have become proficient in gathering, analyzing, understanding, and using data about the success of their instruction and interventions, particularly in literacy.

As they developed these skills, the staff realized that having a data management tool was only part of the necessary supporting structure for collaborative data use; just as important was finding a way to capture and make universally accessible the collaborative process of analysis and planning.  The tool they chose was a Wikispaces wiki.  They’ve used the wiki to house data documents, which results in a “no excuses” understanding that the data are ALWAYS available to those with a need to know.  They’ve used the wiki to capture planning across grades and departments, including minutes from planning meetings, the plans themselves, and record of progress made on the plans.  Possibly as important as any other element, the wiki has become the institutional memory of their effort.  No longer is it necessary to pore back over binders of minutes to try to locate evidence of past efforts and their successes – all these pieces are archived, right on the site.  Of course, Schlegel has created security measures to ensure that the site is accessible only to those individuals with the “need to know”.

As with any innovation, some Schelgel staff were slow to warm to the wiki – and some still may depend on colleagues’ skills to access the information on the site – but in general, response has been good.  The positive response is due in no small part to the simple expectation on the part of building administration that the site WILL be used.  A positive benefit has been that some previously technophobic educators have begun the journey toward really appreciating the potential of Web 2.0 applications.

Anyone who is interested in reading about the literacy practices that led to Schlegel’s identification as an Effective Practice Model School is invited to visit the S3TAIR Project website at http://www.s3tairproject.org  –   Schlegel’s practice can be found at http://www.s3tairproject.org/node/235

Below is a brief overview of the benefits and drawbacks of most of the basecamp features:

• Dashboard: This is the default page and it’s the centralized location for users to see at-a-glance a log of all their project activities. For example an agency may have 15 projects running at the same time, however, the number of projects each staff member is assigned will vary. Each staff person’s dashboard will only display her/his assigned projects and the activities related to them.
• Threaded Messaging: This feature allows users to post messages with attachments. The message is saved in one location and is emailed to all selected recipients. Replies and comments related to the message are also saved to the same location.  The benefit of using the treaded messaging feature as opposed to e-mail, for example, is that all project team members have access to messages (and any attached documents) by topic in one place.
• To-Dos and Milestones: These two features allow users to assign tasks to any project member, identify milestones,  customize personal to-do lists and milestone deliverables, filter tasks by date or by person, track deliverable due dates, and send email notifications that deadlines are coming up or are late. There are some limitations, which include the following: it isn’t easy to track milestones by person across projects, it’s difficult to search and make changes to milestones when administering a large number of projects, and one cannot assign more than one person to a task, or create recurring milestones.
• Writeboard: This is a powerful real-time collaborative document development and editing tool. It’s useful for two or more people in drafting copy for articles, memos, grant proposals, or project planning outlines. It lets users save after every edit, track versions, post general comments, and compare changes across versions. It’s a tool to use prior to formatting documents. One limitation is that users cannot add graphics or tables.
• File Saving: A central location to house files that all group members can access. It allows for simple versioning control and for multiple file uploads at one time. This is particularly helpful when team members are working remotely and cannot access their agency’s internal server. An overall issue is that it isn’t an optimal storage for files. You have less control than you do on a file server.  If you already have an internal file server to document work, you may wind up moving files onto that server.  If you decide to do that, finding the files and ordering them correctly absolutely depends on having a sensible Category system, and transparent file names.  Otherwise it’s very time consuming.

Overall, Basecamp is easy to set up for the administrators of the site, and it requires minimal training for both early and late adopters. If infrequent users need a refresher on some of the features, we direct them to one of the numerous Basecamp how-to training videos located on their support site.

Collaborative writing on a wiki involves inputting text as the basis.  Each time someone accesses the document and changes any element of it, it is placed in history with the screen name of the person who did the edit.  Note that this is not like the text marking option on Word, in which multiple individuals can edit a document and have their edits show up in different colors.  Instead, each edit is stored separately.  A further thing to know is that wiki edits can only be done on text that is inputted into the wiki (it CAN be cut and pasted, although sometimes funny code sort of shows up in the text – if that happens, it can usually be removed easily enough).     Documents generally can be uploaded and accessed, but those do not go into the editing element of the wiki unless they are placed there by keyboarding or cutting and pasting.

One final consideration for wiki writing collaboration is that a wiki is not the place to do formatting.  The editors are simple to use, and most allow things like font sizing and insertion of a table into which text can be inputted, the document will need to be copied and placed into a word processing program (Word, for instance) for more formal formatting.

It only seems right to turn to the wiki-driven online encyclopedia Wikipedia for a definition of wiki:

“A wiki (pronounced WIK-ee) is a website that allows the easy creation and editing of any number of interlinked web pages via a web browser using a simplified markup language or a WYSIWYG ['What You See Is What You Get'] text editor. Wikis are typically powered by wiki software and are often used to create collaborative websites, to power community websites, for personal note taking, in corporate intranets, and in knowledge management systems.

Wikis may exist to serve a specific purpose, and in such cases, users use their editorial rights to remove material that is considered ‘off topic’. Such is the case of the collaborative encyclopedia Wikipedia. In contrast, open purpose wikis accept content without firm rules as to how the content should be organized.

Ward Cunningham, the developer of the first wiki software, WikiWikiWeb, originally described it as ‘the simplest online database that could possibly work’. ‘Wiki’. . . is a Hawaiian word for ”fast’   ‘Wiki’ has been backronymed by some to ‘What I Know Is”.”

I don’t know about you, but they had me at the neo-word “backronymed” – I guess we DID need a word for reverse engineered acronyms.  If you are interested in the embedded definitions and narratives that accompany this definition, you can find the entire article at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wiki

Moving Beyond the Basics

Most of us in the SIGNetwork community will not be using wikis across multiple websites, but rather as a tool for collaboration.  The explosion of free and low-cost wiki applications on the Web has encouraged the development of a host of wikis by educators at many different levels.  The next post will explore some of those uses, as well as beginning a review of a few of the available wiki applications.  We hope you visit us again soon, and post your own comments to make this a more valuable resource.

Teleconference and Speaker Sound System

In Fall 2009, we hosted our first webcast at the Portland SPDG Regional Meeting. We offered an online option to offsite participants who were unable to travel to the face-to-face meeting due to budget restrictions. We used the internet to broadcast live audio and visual transmission face-to-face to the virtual group.  Our goal in hosting the webcast was to make sure the online participants for this hybrid meeting (face-to-face-webcast) were actively engaged in the sessions.

Necessary technology equipment and staff for hosting a webcast

Over the course of a few weeks, our webcast planning team (David Merves, Daphne Worsham, Jennifer Coffey and I) brainstormed and developed a plan for executing the webcast.  The first question we asked ourselves is what equipment will we need? All of us had ample experience hosting online meetings from our offices, but none of us had facilitated a webcast in which the live feed was pushed out from a hotel conference room with presenters, facilitators and 32 face-to-face participants. We turned to our partners, the TACC, who had experience hosting these events, to help us come up with our equipment list. Here’s what we ended up using:

• A screen casting program or online meeting host. We used Ilinc, but there are many more programs available such as the free program, DimDim.
• Sound System with Integrated Teleconference Interface. Our meeting hotel was equipped with the Gentner Hybrid Telephone Interface. The AV technician also brought a sound system to manage the audio output for both online and offsite participants.
• Break-out Room Teleconference Speaker Phone. For small break-out discussion groups we used a dedicated teleconference speaker phone in our alternate meeting room space. Because we did not rent the phone equipment from the hotel and brought our own speaker phone, we had to verify the hotel teleconference jack was compatible with our unit (i.e., digital or analog).
• 5 laptops: one for the presenter visual feed, one to record the webcast, one for note-taking, one for moderating online participant activity, and one for backup – in case a laptop crashes (which happened to us!)
• 2-3 wireless microphones: one for the presenter and two to pass around to participants for discussion and questions.
• A Mobile phone. This phone is used by the virtual moderator for trouble-shooting login issues.
• An Overhead projector for on-site participant viewing.
• Internet Speed – T1 Line. A T-1 line is a MUST to limit the delays to the audio and visual feeds. If necessary, pay extra to have a T1 connection installed for your meeting. We were fortunate that our meeting hotel had recently installed this connection speed.

We knew from the onset what we were attempting to do would require a cast of characters to pull off a successful session for both online and onsite participants. Below are the five team roles necessary to facilitate our 1.5 day conference:

• Face-to-face facilitator: the individual who moderates the needs of the face-to-face participants.
• Virtual proxy or advocate/moderator: the person who moderates the needs of the online participants via the chat room. S/he will act as proxy and ask questions, provide responses to the onsite group.
• Sound technician: an individual skilled in using the sound system. In our case, we contracted with the hotel’s AV vendor, Think AV. We paid for 12 hours of the sound technician’s (Brian’s) time.
• Webcast/online recorder: the individual to record the meeting in segments.
• Tech support for presenters to moderate the presenter visual feed.

Understanding and Managing the Online Participant Experience

Online meetings are in real time. Two-way communication occurs via instant messaging applications and audio between a participant and the host or group (in this case the face-to-face group). Online participants are able to share content and visuals from their computers, watch and listen to other participant presentations, and ask questions and make comments.

All this being said, anyone who has attended at least one online meeting understands the virtual environment will never replicate the face-to-face experience. It can come close at times, but certainly, the online experience is less accessible. Sound quality can be poor due to background noise, and visuals can be delayed from 5 seconds to 5 + minutes due to slow Internet connections. These less then optimal visual and audio feeds can be frustrating to the participant and result in attendees losing interest.

Additionally, because online participants are not seen by the onsite participants, presenters, and facilitators, these virtual attendees can feel marginalized or lose interest if they are not engaged at regular intervals (i.e., asked questions directly, reviewing their instant messaging comments, etc.).

A Must – Appoint a Virtual Proxy/Moderator

To address the issues that occur for online viewers, we appointed one person to support them – the virtual proxy/moderator. This person was responsible for moderating the needs of the online participants via instant messaging (we used our online meeting room chat pod). If virtual attendees had trouble hearing, they could send a message to our online moderator (David), who in turn would inform the sound technician (Brian) to adjust the volume. Additionally, during presenter Q&A sessions, the virtual proxy would be the voice for the online group if they posed questions within the chat room.

Check-in with Online Participants at Regular Intervals

Sitting in front of a computer display for hours at a time to listen to off-site presenters is challenging. It’s easy to get distracted, to check email, and to multi-task. A strategy to keep folks engaged is to check-in with them periodically. This can easily be done during Q&A sessions. Ask the online group specifically if they have questions. And/or during discussion periods, address people by name if you know they have something to add.

Add Teleconference Lines for Break-out Discussion Groups

We scheduled several break-out discussion sessions for our participants. To make this happen we set up a dedicated conference line for these conversations. Online participants, who were attending a conversation that would occur in an alternate meeting room, were required to log off the ‘large group’ teleconference line and dial-in using an alternate line. It’s important that you appoint an individual in the face-to-face break-out room to dial-in to this second conference line and have a computer available to view the online meeting chat room.

Practicing with the Participants

After hosting over 50 online meetings and webinar sessions, I’ve learned some critical points in hosting web meetings.  First, online participants are more engaged when they understand how to use the online meeting room space. The best way to get comfortable with the environment is to play with it. For our purposes, we scheduled three sessions for online participants to practice using the features of Ilinc.

Developing a Script or Process Agenda

With any meeting it’s essential to plan the process agenda. When planning this webcast meeting, we created a script for all the facilitators. There is a lot to remember  such as, when to start and stop recording, when to activate a conference line, when to call on the online group, and who’s responsible for doing what and when.  After finalizing the script we emailed the document to online participants a few days prior to the session so they too would know the timing of events and would have all the relevant information at their finger tips — facilitator contact information, meeting login information, and break-out discussion room teleconference lines.  [Sample Process Agenda]

What We Learned

A lot of effort and good thinking went into hosting the event and overall we were pleased with the positive comments shared by our online viewers. We did learn some things that would improve their experience. First of all, we learned from post-event feedback that asking distant viewers to attend for more than four hours a day is too much. They found it difficult to stay focused. Next time, we will make adjustments with how we structure the sessions. Perhaps mixing up presentations with discussion group sessions at regular intervals would be a strategy to increase variety and interest.

A second issue for a few online participants was the inability to connect our ILINC meeting room space. For example, one participant’s state internal internet security system/firewalls blocked her connection and she needed some time to resolve the issue. Next time, we will recommend that all online attendees check their systems a day prior to the conference to ensure their systems can access the web-based room.

Something we didn’t do this year was practice with presenters ahead of time and provide instructions for addressing the needs of the online group. We were fortunate to have two skilled presenters, who did an excellent job adjusting for the needs of the online group, however, there were some issues that arose. The online group couldn’t see when the presenter pointed to something displayed on the projector screen nor could they hear well when the microphone was not positioned close to the presenter’s mouth. Making adjustments to ensure pointers are seen and audio is heard, will require the presenter to limit using arm gestures when speaking and to use the pointer function on the laptop versus the projector screen.

If you would like details on costs, contact author Audrey Desjarlais at adesjarl@uoregon.edu.

Whether or not you use the application’s available display options, it is quite likely that you will want to subject the data, including any open ended responses, to additional analyses. Most online survey applications provide download options, as shown in the SurveyMonkey screenshot below:

The first option is whether to download a summary or a complete data set. If a complete data set is chosen, you must then decide whether the download should feature condensed or expanded columns (depending on the number of data points, expanded columns may result in the table being broken into two or more pages at the 256 character point), and whether to include actual item choice text as column headers or their numerical values. Data dowloads of complete data sets are in spreadsheet format.

This is an example of an Excel download of summary data:

And this is an example of a PDF download:

SurveySummary_example

Full Data Set downloads

If you wish to conduct additional analyses on your full data sets, you may download all collected responses. If you do so, you will receive them in a spreadsheet format. You have some options about the format, as you will see in this screenshot:

The other option in the drop down menu for is numerical value; in other words, you may chose from a full text representation of items in the spreadsheet, or they may be represented by numbers (item 1 = 1, et cetera). Results are sent to the email address you provide.

. . . and finally . . .

As you can see, online survey applications provide a nice option for the researcher. It is good to remember that these surveys also allow a quick way of surveying the needs, wants, attitudes, et cetera, of members of any groups you work with, whether or not the data are used in evaluation or other research.

Clearly the simplest way to deal with data collected by an online survey application is to use the application’s own display options. Different applications have different options, but I will use SurveyMonkey as an example.

Charting

SurveyMonkey provides the option to display the responses from each question in chart form. The user can choose the type chart and display options for each item. Chart types include a column chart:

Create Chart page

. . . a pie chart

. . . a bar chart

. . . a line chart

. . . or an area chart

In addition, there are decision to be made for chart settings, including how respondent choices will be included and how data labels will be displayed, as seen below:

Some of the display decisions include determining how many of the “choices” (responses) are to be included in the charts, and whether and how omitted choices will be displayed (for example, three response choices are specified, and the remainder are either not displayed, or displayed under a grouping label like “other).

In addition, you may choose whether to show the raw values only, percents only, both values and percents, or to show no only the visual with no associated data. The example below provides both values and percents.

The final choice for all but pie charts is whether to include percents along the axis of the chart or rely on a visual display alone.

Next up: data set downloads

Downloading item responses

As with other things we’ve discussed, display capabilities vary among the online survey applications. I will discuss SurveyMonkey as an example. Most subscription applications will have at least the same capabilities; more expensive applications will provide even more options. I will use SurveyMonkey as an example of what’s available, beginning with the options for viewing and downloading responses; those options are listed in the screen print below:

(Click image for a larger view.)

In my own use of this application, I have often found it useful just to browse responses. The application allows the user to browse across all respondents on a single item, or to browse responses to all items for a single respondent. This kind of dip-sticking provides some interesting insights while responses are still coming in without compromising the database.

SurveyMonkey provides an option for filtering responses, as indicated in the screen print below:

(Click image for a larger view.)

As stated, responses may be filtered by response so that, for instance, only people who answered in the positive to a particular item will be in the sample. Responses may also be filtered by the properties of the response; this option is nice because it allows limiting an analysis to responses between certain dates or other delimiters. As with analyses applied to an Excel or Access database, the analysis does not in any way alter the basic data stored in the data base; if what you try doesn’t provide the picture you need, simply discard it.

The crosstab option allows another way of comparing responses of a limited group of respondents against the total pool. The following screen print from SurveyMonkey documentation provides a clear and succinct comparison of filters and crosstab possibilities:

(Click image for a larger view.)

One option is to export responses to each item individually. SurveyMonkey provides several export formats, as is indicated in this download screen:

(Click image for a larger view.)

The general options allow a general summary report (narrative) or a download of all data collected to date into a format that can be imported into a database or spreadsheet for further analysis. As you can see, several of these options provide data in a database format; these options are particularly useful if you will be subjecting the data to more rigorous statistical analyses not available in the online application. In addition, the responses may be downloaded as an HTML object that may easily be posted to a website. A nice option is the ability to download the open-ended questions, in whatever format you’ve chosen.

Next up: Graphic data displays from SurveyMonkey