Kelli Jimenez March 21, 2011

Lamar University

EDLD 5352 Instructional Leadership: Technology Component EA 1189

Web Conference Reflection

I attended the web conference on Sunday, March 20 that was to begin at 7:30. I signed in early because
I had heard that if you weren’t signed in early, you might not get into the web conference. Since I knew
I would be out of town for the last conference I was taking no chances and signed in around 6:50 p.m.

After some time, I found that I had made it into the conference and watched as the list of participants
grew. The people in the conference were steadily submitting comments, some which pertained to the
content, but most of them did not. When Dr. Abernathy appeared, I tried to read her comments, but
there was so much other commenting going on that it was difficult to understand. There were technical
difficulties and people seemed to be going in all different directions. I was thinking that everyone should
sit still for a moment and wait for Dr. Abernathy to facilitate the conference, but that never happened.
Eventually, I believe Dr. Abernathy grew frustrated with the group and ended the web conference.

I have no idea how the other web conferences went but this one was not informative. I think if there
were some clarity added to the expectations of the conference it would be helpful. The participants in
the web conference did not understand the purpose and therefore it was chaotic from the beginning. I
am wondering if there is an area in the conference before you are admitted as a participant that you can
read the protocol for participating in a web conference and that would be the place you could also state
the purpose and the goals of the web conference. When I read the syllabus before the conference I
could not find a reference to protocols or purpose. It did say that more information would be
forthcoming, but I had difficulty finding definite outcomes. I understood the conference to be for
answering questions and getting needed information about assignments, but with such a large group I
think there must be clearer, stated boundaries.