September 27, 2005
Teaching Courses while at a Conference
An instructor contacted me who is going away to a conference, but still wants to teach his lectures to his class of 150 students. All other alternatives for teaching the course (pre-recording, video conferencing, etc.) were too expensive. He was ready to cancel the lectures, but then he heard about our new Web Conferencing system.
This instructor has some advantages. He is already teaching in a media-center equipped lecture theater. He also has prepared the lessons ahead of time and has created PowerPoint slides for them. So most of the required development work is done.
Here's the plan. A teaching assistant will go to the lecture theatre and log into the class as a student. The computer screen will be projected for the students to see.
The instructor will log into the class as the presenter from his hotel room. He'll present his PowerPoint slides, and talk about what's being presented. The slides will appear on the projected screen, and his voice will be broadcast over the lecture theatre's sound system.
If the students have any questions, the TA will "raise his hand" in Elluminate and relay the question to the instructor.
The instructor may also opt to record the session for playback later.
I'm looking forward to seeing how this will work out. Stay tuned.
Posted by kvl014 at 09:47 PM