Another evaluation of our mini conference

When I reread my previous evaluation I started off by evaluating the mini conference but ended by evaluating the course. Must have been post evaluation amnesia so will try again.
1. What went well and what didn't go well - I think the general flow of the session was logical and easy to understand and follow. The subject was relevant to our course and was applicable to all participants despite the platform being used in a health organisation. This point is important if different types of participants will be attending We ran to time nand I felt we were not rushed or pushed for time. I know at one stage Malcolm was a little worried we were running late but I was able to reassure him through a chat message seen only by the staff which made it easy to manage. I had watched the other facilitated sessions throughout the course to see what time they kept and it generally followed the same plan of 5 - 10 minute introduction / house keeping, 20 - 30 minute presentation followed by questions and summary.
What didn't go well - we didn't advertise soon enough or wide enough. This was due to not finalising our topic exactly till the last minute and therefore were unable to put out the correct information soon enough.

2. How the event was organised and promoted - adequate info, support & relevance. I felt there was enough information in the advertising although I found this hard to do on Twitter due to the word count. If I had my time again, I would just include my blog url so to redirect them to my site so they can check out the full details. This also provides extra traffic to my blog which is only a good thing. I don't think we advertised long enough or wide enough. I felt able to offer technical support as this was one of the biggest issues for me. I assisted a brand new user how to navigate from the start and she only managed to get on 2 minutes before we started. I didn't want to leave her so had a plan B if she was unable to access Elluminate and I had to go. As stated before I thought the session was relevant to the course and all our participants.

3. Event was managed & conducted smoothly - yes I think this occurred, in saying that, it felt like it did to me. I was very prepared, we had rehearsed and each of us had a back up plan for the other. I was obsessed with having a back up plan for everything - my OCD coming out with avengence.

4. Efforts were made to ensure participants knew where they were supposed to be and when and arranged technical support. Yes I felt that the course wiki and advertising details were quite explicit and we didn't seem to lose anyone that said that they would be coming. I noticed some groups asked for a reply to say if you were coming. This might have been a good idea, more so to alleviate us of the worry that potentially no one would turn up - now that would be awful.

5. How you set the stage, made introductions, remained neutral - I felt we could have done a little more introducing of ourselves to help people know who we were. I thought this was too brief. As for remaining neutral - I think this may have been easier had I not been involved with the subject matter that happened to be close to my heart at the time. I wonder what it would be like to faciliate an event that you knew nothing about?

6. Did you go round , draw closure and indicate where recordings would be? - I felt we went round and I kept a note of who had asked a question and the subject matter of that question. Malcolm did the summarising and I supported him in this. I thought it was good how Malcolm put over the chat box that people could interupt and ask a question or wait till the end a the beginning of the presentation. It intially felt peopel were a bit reluctant to engage and so I think this broke the ice a little. In the future I would like to go around everyone in the introductions and just to do a quick intro to get people in the right frame of mind to engage.

7. Feedback from the audience - was very positive. I liked how someone commented it was the first time she felt her voice /opinion was asked for which made me feel like I had really listened to the participants ( a skill I have been trying to improve).

8. How would you do things in the future? - overall the session went well, Just a few twicking things to do - advertising, general confidence with being able to solve IT problems, sorting out why I can not upload a power point presentation.

I enjoyed it and would do it again tommorrow.

Recording of our mini conference 1.11.10

Here is the recording of our mini conference from 1.11.10. Driving change: Introducing a virtual education and training portal into a large organisation / network - the opportunities and challenges. Thankyou to those of you who attended and we look forward to your feedback.
Regards Jillian & Malcolm

My evaluation of our mini conference

Overall I am generally please with how the session turned out. I spent alot of time (and some would say too much time) preparing down to the enth degree and having back up plans for absolutely everything. My biggest fear was not being able to manage the technology and associated problems - something out of my control. (I realise that I am a total control freak and do not like anything to be outside of my control). I have found online facilitating similar in lots of ways to my facilitation of the student midwife real world environment however it is the unpredictability of the virtual world that scares me. All in all the things I will take away from this course are:
1. Learning new technology is very time comsuming and at times frustrating. Without the desire to learn more, the obstacles would be overwhelming for an apathetic learner. Therefore we need to engage, excite and arouse the learner to tweek their interest and bring them to the onine world of learning
2. Give them reasons to engage. Advertise the benefits to them. Sell them the product / site / technology. Sales plays a big part in getting them to the site. Social networking plays a big part in keeping them there. Use this to your advantage.
3. A plethora of tools awaits us - ever growing, ever changing. Be patient, have a go and have fun as you engage with people from all walks of life. It will open doors and provide access to people you never knew existed.
4. Don't take it all too serious. Now that my uni semester is all but over, maybe now I can relax a little more and really enjoy the online journey. With no assessments hanging in the balance, I can just enjoy the experience. Would love to have another go at it when it is just for fun.
5. The process of online facilitation from start to finish is lengthy, complicated and at times frustrating however it has improved my skills exponentionally because I had to do it over and over again. I am proud of myself for silly things like being able to hyperlink tiny URLs, edit a wiki, work a world time clock, help someone new come into Elluminate -walk them through the process and trouble shoot. I need to work on getting better at Twitter - not really getting the whole concept yet, understanding more technical jargon and being able to sell / advertise things better online.
Overall I have thoroughly enjoyed the course and learnt heaps. Thanks to Sarah for excellent you tube videos (an idiots guide on how to....do anything) these really made a difference to being able to do things without having to ask you all the time LOL!!! Thankyou to all the participants for your encouragement, sharing of knowledge and ideas and to my family who has supported me in this very time consuming process of online learning.