Webex 30 September - 2009

I was very curious to try Webex as it sounded interesting and I hadn't experienced anything like it before.

I received my invitation to join early in the day but found that I was unable to accept the invitation until right before the meeting began. I found this a tad daunting - as my computer is not always the most reliable and I would of liked to of been prepared if anything should not go to plan. Luckily, everything did go to plan and I was able to accept the invitation without any problems.

I had my microphone and earphones set and ready to go, but found I could not hear properly nor could others hear me, thus my microphone and earphones were malfunctioning! This did not seem to be a huge problem as I could still hear without the earphones, but the only problem was I couldn't speak.

I liked how on Webex the person who is facillitating the meeting can "mute" other participants. I sometimes find dialogue during online discussions (particilarly when several people are participating) can run in many different directions and thus can be confusing. The "mute" function helps to overcome that. Similarly, I liked how participants could use the hands up function.

I can see Webex or a program similar to it being advantageous in a remote school similar to the one where I am currently working in. At out school we are often short of specialist teachers and I see (if it wasn't for the financial cost) that we could employ a specialist teacher to instruct classes via Webex, as the students can still see the instructor and vice versa. Of course, in terms of behaviour management there would have to be a teacher physically in the room with the students however, I think this could be something that isolated schools should probably think about considering.