Online Events: some examples from the VECO Community

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Online Events some examples from the VECO
Community

• Janine Bowes
• August 2001

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About VECO

• VECO is an online community for VET in Schools
  practitioners - with an emphasis on structured
  workplace learning coordinators

http//www.veco.ash.org.au
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What people DO in VECO?

• Ongoing email discussion
• participate in online events
• share information and resources through the
  website
• publish stories
• access services

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VECO as a PD model
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What are Online Events?

• Characteristics
• clear purpose
• identified timeframe
• use ICT s
• encourage audience interaction

• Examples
• online guests - individuals, panel, sequence
• chatroom sessions
• facilitated email discussion
• webcast
• hybrid events
• Other?

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Why bother?

• Access to expertise
• Learning opportunities
• Creates unique online content
• Can be used to bring face to face events to a
  wider audience

Online guests learn too. Invariably they note
that the process of reflection helps to clarify
their thoughts and they learn from the input of
the community.
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Act 1 VECO Online Guests

• Evolving model
• Web plays role before during and after
• promotion
• background material
• support
• archives
• Scaffolding for novices
• orientation messages
• support for guests

• consistently rated highly in feedback
• consistently in top 3 sections on web stats
• Benefits
• - accessing expertise
• - focussed discussion
• - archived resource after the event

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Act 1 Scene 1 - the first guest

• WHAT single guest
• WHY? Focussed discussion to stimulate activity
• HOW? Email to list over 2 weeks
• PREP - guest
• - web
• - community

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First guest lessons

• People liked it!
• The guest enjoyed it too
• Guest spent about 1 hour per day
• Metaphor of presenting a paper in instalments
  worked well

• Model worked well
• Archive of the event began a growing story (or
  tall tale!) that paved the way for future guests
  and set a standard

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Hands on
HANDS ON Explore the guest archives for 10
minutes
http//www.veco.ash.org.au/guest
Question what would the guest need to know and
do before beginning the event?
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Act 2 Webcasting

• Experimenting with emerging technologies to see
  what made sense, what barriers existed etc
• First webcast in August 1998
• Several since
• Also use sound recording to capture some material

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Act 2 Webcasting
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Act 2 Scene1First webcast - live broadcast

• WHAT webcast speaker to remote audience
• WHY? To see if it worked! To set some performance
  benchmarks
• HOW? Webcast audio
• PREP heaps by an enthusiastic but geographically
  separate team

• Theres no point webcasting in real time unless
  the audience can interact
• audience needs visual aids eg PPT as well as audio

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Act 2 Scene 2Webcasting from conference

• WHAT webcast 2 keynote speakers chat
• WHY? Bring a face to face event to a wider
  audience
• HOW? Webcast audio followed by chat
• PREP - negotiations with conf organisers/
  speakers
• - guests
• - web and streaming
• - audience

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Act 2 Scene 3Webcasting a workshop

• Actual workshop was excellent - recommended
  listening
• Attempt to emulate to remote audience using
  webcast plus chat did not work well
• Debrief was great!

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Act 2 Scene 3Webcasting a workshop cont..

• Debrief questions
• 1 How did you feel - before, during and after
  the event? 2 Did the experience match your
  expectations?3 What special arrangements did you
  need to make in order to play your part (travel,
  practice time, trialling technololgy etc)4 What
  worked ? 5 What could be improved? 6 Can a live
  and virtual audience be integrated? 7 If so,
  what special considerations do you need to give
  - to the face to face audience to the webcast
  audience to the planners to the facilitators to
  workshop presenters 8 What are the live and
  virtual participants' responsibilities? 9 What
  are the presenter's responsibilities? 10 In what
  contexts would webcasting work well?

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Hands on
HANDS ON 1998 - broadcast May 1999 - Quality
VET in Schools August 1999 - PCETA webcast
http//www.veco.ash.org.au/guest
Question when is webcasting an appropriate
technology to use?
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Act 3 Bright Futures - a more sophisticated
model for guests
Key points- One month - separate email list for
the event- better for archiving and to include
external audience - option to invite a friend
Corporate topic
Multiple guests
Detailed menu
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Act 3 - Bright Futures

• WHAT CEO, writer and 3 principals as guests
  discussing Bright Futures paper
• WHY? Raise awareness stimulate debate
• HOW? email discussion over one month
• PREP - guests audience
• - wide promotion

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Hands on
http//www.veco.ash.org.au/guest/brightfutures
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Act 4 Email Games

• Benefits of email games
• anonymous participation
• guided thinking
• References
• LearnScope
• http//www.learnscope.anta.gov.au
• Virtual Games for Real Learning - Marie Jasinski
  Thiagi

• Example C3PO
• Challenge
• Pool, Poll, Predict
• Outcome

• Other Examples
• Depolariser
• Galactic Wormhole

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Email games hands on
http//www.veco.ash.org.au/resources/burnout.asp
http//www.veco.ash.org.au/guest/topics.asp
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Roles in an event

• Facilitator/host
• introduces guest
• provides summaries
• steers conversation
• crowd control
• concludes event including debrief

• Guest
• not necessarily IT literate
• needs to understand context, guest concept and
  this particular event
• may need support during event
• important to debrief

• Active Audience
• may be seeded
• need simple protocols

• Passive Audience
• do lurkers learn?

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Serendipities

• Tom Bentley - seizing the moment when opportunity
  knocks
• Silence is golden - a guest who got little
  interaction but who was highly valued because his
  topic was new - people simply wanted the
  information
• Content made available by guests - excerpts from
  books even printed matter for transcription (!)

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The Bottom Line

• Identifying quality opportunities - face to face
  events, people with expertise, topics that people
  feel passionate about
• and then
• Choosing combinations of technologies and
  strategies that will enable people to gain
  benefit
• How can technology enable this event?

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Further information

• More on webcasting
• http//www.teachers.ash.org.au/jbowes/webcast
• LearnScope Virtual Guests in Residence (Expert
  Spruik)
• http//www.learnscope.anta.gov.au
• Women of NASA
• http//quest.arc.nasa.gov