Q: What did you do at the AP conference on April 11?

A: The AP-TIP Grant had me pilot the idea of a webinar that would be in conjunction with the AP session or as a supplement to on of the conferences.

Q: How is a webinar conducted?
A: Some classes did it right after school like another school class, so they just put the video feed up on a SMARTBoard for the students to interact with. It is done through a shared desktop and a headset. I speak to the students, and they see what I’m doing on the board. There are also features like question-and-answer boxes or polls you can preload to see if the students are understanding.

Q: What was the purpose of this?
A: Because the second conference is around January or February, there tends to be a lot of cancellations for the weather. To prevent all of these cancellations, they want to maybe use the webinar in place of the second conference.

Q: What is the software used to do this?
A:  The software is called WebEx, and it was made usable to students through the grant. They were sent the link to download it and then given a username and password to log on.

Q: What is the big difference between a webinar and giving a regular lecture?
A: I think the biggest difference is that you don’t realize how many non-verbal gestures you give to communicate to students to get a point across. I had to use of a lot of question boxes and checks to make sure all of the students were on the same page.

The recording of Dr. Verpooten’s lecture is available to all students on Vimeo through this link: