(u06a2) Broadcast Yourself

For this assignment I created a live webinar about Skype in the Classroom and posted the link to ipadio.com for others to view. The toughest parts were not recording the webinar nor was it uploading the audio, but instead choosing my topic and deciding on a time to host the webinar. The first challenge was deciding on a time and date that would work best for not only me, but also my viewers. With two little children who want to be at my side constantly, I knew I needed a particular time they would be busy or asleep. The other challenge was remembering to publicize my topic, time, date, and website for my webinar. I"m not one to share much about my personal ideas so it was a little nerving to publicize the webinar.

I decided to just record my voice instead of videotaping my face as well. I have attended live webinars before; it just feels a little awkward at times when it's just a person's face in the screen. Also, going back to having small children, I didn't want to risk one of them being on the screen. Lastly, I really wanted my viewers to be able to view the Skype website while I was speaking.

For a few days I wrestled with ideas regarding the topic of the webinar. Trying to find something that was interesting to most educational levels as well as a tool that most have not heard of was the demand. In the end, I decided on Skype in the Classroom because there are many different options available depending upon the classroom age and not very many teachers are aware of the options available. Using my past experiences with Skype also aided in my explanation. Previously, I have attended 1 to 2 hour webinars over various topics, thus I knew I didn't want my webinar to be that long.

Overall, I do believe my webinar went smoothly and I found a topic that could meet various needs. In the future, I would work backwards from what I did for this assignment. My comfort level would include recording my webinar first, then broadcasting a link to the recording over social media. I do understand this would limit anyone's ability to ask questions to me directly, but with busy schedules of teachers, it is hard for most educators to attend a webinar on a specific date and at a specific time.