webinar: PBS's Teaching about Place with Ken Burns's "The National Parks: America's Best Idea" recorded October 7, 2009

I viewed an archived webinar on pbs.org that was informative and entertaining.  Due to my love for the outdoors and my history working in Yellowstone I chose the webinar Teaching about Place with Ken Burns's"The National Parks: America's Best Idea" recorded October 7, 2009.  The age of the webinar did not concern me so much due the content.

The webinar began with an introduction on how to participate in the webinar complete with a visual on where the tools are on the screen and how, when and why to use them:

The webinar continued with one of the moderators taking the time to learn where everyone was from. He did this by having the participants use the appropriate screen tool to point out their location on the map.  As you can see below participants were spread out all over the US:

The moderators then took a moment to introduce the presenters and we were o our way!

I was impressed by the way the presenters and the moderators were able to open windows for all to see.  Although what surprised me was how the window they opened was live for me even thogh the presentation was a recording.  I was able to move the YouTube window around and when I tried to close it I was informed with a error box that only the moderators could close the window.

I was also impressed by the functionality of the real-time surveying that was done during the presentation so the presentors could get a “show of hands” when they asked questions regarding the information they were going over during the presentation.

The session was concluded with a question and answer period where participants had the opportunity to ask the presenters questions directly about the information covered during the webinar.

And of course there was about five minutes of PBS-related advertising!

Overall, I was impressed by the functionality of the whole webinar experience.  I have taken part in webinars in the past, but they have mostly been more akin to sitting in a classroom watching a PowerPoint lecture.  I will keep an eye on PBS.org and look forward to being a participant in one of their webinars in the future.