Week 5 - Show and Tell

This week was for our groups Online presentations in teams of two. We commenced with a great demonstration of how to make up a beautiful floral posy and this was followed by a survey, just to make sure we were paying attention! A great example of how to teach new techniques to remote staff or to demonstrate a feature to clients. Our next presentation was about the relative merits of groups environments eg Google groups, verses a forum, referring to the car detailing industry. The second team produced a podcast on making podcasts - we all listened to this and then returned to the Online meeting room, to finish up with a discussion and several polls about health and the benefits of healthy living, an important topic for busy business people. We were then shown the participant's website, and how to obtain more information on an ongoing basis.

After just a few online sessions, our four presenters, all small business people, were each able to run an online meeting, and use this to show off something about their individual businesses. With the team interaction and the text chat going on, it was a really interesting and fun session, and one that raised the confidence to a new level.

Week 4 - more tools :)

Our online session this week was a mixed bag - both in terms of technical issues and new stuff. We had ten in the meeting room, but one had outbound sound problems and another participant had webcam issues, but fortunately, everyone could hear, and communicate, so it still worked for the session. The topics were del.icio.us and RSS feeds and readers, and then we all watched a YouTube video on making a podcast. Actually quite a lot for one session - plus working out what works in the presentation.

Megameeting works well in the meeting room and it was good to all go and watch the same video, and then come back to discuss it. But when the presenter was working through various websites, there was a delay which slowed down the presentation, and it may be better for the future to make a Powerpoint presentation of the various screenshots. Again, it was an entertaining session, and really great to not have to drive on a cold night, and being home with a coffee, and yet also in a training session with others was a real bonus! (Mary)