I am a survivor

Orginal Post:  March 1, 2010

I am a survivor!! I facilitated my first unit and lived to tell about it.  This was quite the experience preparing for the presentation of the material and then loading it into Wimba –the right way.   I was a nervous wreck wanting to make sure my presentation was interesting, informative and a good learning experience for my peers.  I get nervous lecturing to my face to face class but my peers is really nerve wracking. 

I read my material, looked for an interesting topic to present on and then began the presentation.  Putting together the power point was interesting as I was trying to make it interactive and a little humorous.  I always feel that humor in the right place makes learning more fun.  I will share one of my pictures with all of you here.  This is my favorite Inspector Gadget.

had practiced my presentation and felt ready to go, I opened to my class and the Wimba site 15 minutes early, I even had time to have a little conversation before the presentation with my instructor, I was going to be OK.  THEN it all fell apart.  The other students started to arrive and I was ready to begin and my ability to be heard was gone.  The computer froze. I froze. I raced to the desk top and began to open up my class on that computer and realized my power point was on my lap top.  So back to my lab top I ran and shut down and restart. Now I had to reopened the course and get back on Wimba.  I was sure I had been gone for hours and everyone has just left the Wimba room.   My heart was racing, my hands were sweating and I thought I was going to just…. I don’t know.  Then the course came up and everyone was still there, they didn’t leave and I could start my presentation.

Well, what a start to giving your first Wimba facilitation presentation.  I felt that I had interesting information and had presented it in an informative and interesting way.  It just was difficult talking into a computer and not seeing anyone looking back at you.  Then there was what I call “dead space”.  When you ask a question and you are waiting for an answer or ask someone to do something and waiting for them to complete the task.  The part of me that is the formal and demonstrator wanted to jump in and take over but, I had to remember I am the facilitator and that for me is hard.  I tend to just want to do and get it done.  Being a good online teacher I think is being able to let them do some of the teaching their self and not doing it for them.  I really have to work at this part of online teaching. 

My asynchronous part of facilitating I felt went real well.  I was able to respond to each person at least twice and keep the dialog going in a rich learning environment.  This part of facilitating is easier for me than the synchronous portion.  I don’t have the same feelings to want to jump in and take over here I am more apt to allow the students to respond back and forth and just put in food for thought.

I must admit this has been an interesting exercise that I really need more practice in if I am to do this on a regular basis.