my first webcast

I was so excited last week. I started a new job and I had to attend a webcast during the first three days. Let me tell you, I was SO excited!!!

And then it started...

SO NOT LIKE CENTRA :o)
Ok, if you've never experienced a webcast, think of Dr. N. doing a presentation in Centra, but without the smileys or being able to participate on the screen at all. Also, there's no text chat box. So you have to sit and watch on the computer screen, while listening on the phone (as a conference call). And if you have a question, there's no way to "raise your hand" you simply say "excuse me, i have a question" then you have to verbally identify yourself, cause no one knows who's actually talking, except the trainer (and you only recognize his voice because he's doing most of the talking). That's the long and short of it.

My experience was......interesting. For one thing, one of the callers put the conference call on hold, so there was elevator music in the background. The good thing was that the trainer/presenter had the option to mute all. So he muted the lot of us, and you had to unmute yourself if you wanted to or if you wanted to talk.

The other thing was that the whole thing was boring. There was absolutely no learner interaction or feedback. Yes, you got the opportunity to ask questions and you could interrupt at anytime, but there was nothing checking that the "listeners" were actually listening or learning something. I'll be objective and say that it was only my 3rd day and I probably had no clue what was goind on, but............still!

Let's see. The only other thing was that even though the trainer tried to review different parts of the software updates, there were so many holes that there would be no way to know what you really knew until you went to work in the software yourself.

There were some good points. It didn't matter if any of the learners actually had the software. All you needed was a phone line to do the conference call, and an internet connection to view the demonstration. I think that this was a great option if you have people uning in from all over the world. You'd just have to be careful of the time changes. We were 1 hour early because we forgot the presenter was in a different time zone.

It didn't take a lot of time to log in and get started. You had the option of getting your question answered right there and then. (Even if that meant that the instructor didn't know the answer).And you could get everyone in one "place" at the same time.

Well. Have any of you ever been in a webcast? Do you have any comments to add to mine?

Note: Next week there will be two more. And the following week, the entire office will be in full fledge training!! So I really get some first hand learner experience :o) I'm excited.