Webinar

Although this particular neologism bothers me, yesterday I did participate in a web-based seminar (or "event" as Capella University, the sponsor/host, describes it). Intrigued by the topic, "Academic Standards in Online Teaching and Curriculum," I logged into a webspace to participate, a website that didn't make clear how I was to communicate/listen to the webinar (why does no one use consistent vocabulary when describing things?). Eventually, I was able to connect fully, after typing in questions to the "host" (different from the "presenter") who did an admirable job juggling the technology.

The hour-long experience consisted of me watching a series of PowerPoint slides on my computer while I listened on the phone to the presenter talk about the slides. Participants could type questions into the "Chat" space on the website (not the Q&A space which is where I typed my first three questions). The presenter would stop occasionally to ask for questions, which the host would read to her from the website - evidently, the presenter wasn't seeing the same thing we were seeing. Oddly, I could not tell who else was participating: no list of participants appeared, even though I asked for one, and so I thought I was listening by myself for the longest time - and I thought I was listening to a taped presentation because it was so stilted.

Sadly, the slides and presenter were unsatisfying to me because they were both too complicated and too generalized to be taken seriously as "seminar" topics. If listeners did not already agree with the presenter's points and references, they couldn't accept or even understand the advice they were being given. That such an event was called "higher education" frustrates me. I wouldn't prepare something that thin and biased for my undergraduates.

As a person trained in the humanities, I'm used to asking questions, asking for clarification and for support/rationale/reasons/justification for ideas I encounter. In short, I'm a critical thinker. But critical thinkers could not fully participate in this event because they didn't have any opportunity to be truly critical. Sure, we could ask questions, but no follow-ups, so my only question conveyed to the presenter received a woefully inadequate response: mostly broad generalizations without support (along with a sad joke).

I'm frustrated that so-called experts in education provide such sub-standard content - and via the online medium, which further limits the value of that content. For all the presenter's emphasis on "standards" and "outcomes," I do not see that she planned any for this particular educational event. It was much more of a "do as I say, not as I do" experience.

Extremely disappointing.