I'd like to conclude my review of last Friday's eLearning Network Thinking Synch event by expressing my surprise at just how inventive people are becoming at using synchronous e-learning technologies. I've seen some really good web conferencing sessions but more often than not they're simple presentations with slides, sprinkled with interactions. Now, when you have a good speaker with good slides and meaningful interactivity then that's a good combination whatever the medium, but I think it's fair to say that most facilitators shy away from formats that challenge this rather safe model.
So, I was pleased at the event to hear about the many ways in which people are adopting more innovative approaches:
- Val Brooks and Judy Hooton of Stockton City Learning Centre have been setting up sessions where kids can interview a top rocket scientist from Houston; in another session they have had teams of children engage in online grand prix racing (I'm not sure how - I didn't get to ask).
- Brian Bishop of Caspian Learning, showed how Teletech@Home used web conferencing to run highly authentic role plays for call centre operators based at home.
- Ron Edwards of Ambient Performance showed how sales and customer service role plays could be conducted with great realism in Forterra. The videos Ron showed just blew me away - so much more realistic and flexible than classroom role plays. See for yourself - you can download the videos from the Forterra site).
So, it seems that synchronous e-learning simply can't be put in a box labelled Second Best but Very Cheap: you're not restricted to short sessions, you can do a lot more than inflict online death by PowerPoint, and design it well and you can achieve better results than you will in a classroom. And that's progress.
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