The webinar platform for online conferencing was largely developed for business meetings. But gathering participants in a room, talking to them, using PowerPoint and a white board, playing audio and video, all the while responding to live questions―that sounds a lot like a classroom.

Between spring 2009 and summer 2010, we gave a series of webinars in the Middle East. We were based in Jordan—one of us in the capital, Amman, the other on the Red Sea town of Aqaba. Along with Jordanians, we had participants from Syria, the West Bank, Gaza, Lebanon, and Iraq. Travel to and from these regions can be complicated, and webinars provided a great venue for reaching these teachers. Reaching them simultaneously was an added boon; it meant we were making a regionwide community of practice.

We used Adobe Acrobat Connect Pro Meeting, which does not require participants to register ahead of time or download software.

Our topics for the 90-minute webinars included “The Future of English for Teachers and Learners,” “Critical and Creative Thinking,” “Online Resources,” “Tools for Activating Materials and Tasks in the Language Classroom,” “Managing Large Classes,” and “Language and Music.” Attendance averaged about 20 persons, but the webinar was a new idea in a region where new ideas take root slowly, and the number of participants increased over time. The teachers also were very active on the class Ning, which provided a community of practice and enquiry for post- and pre-session discussions.

Now, in early 2011, it’s clear that teachers are finding the webinar platform more accessible.

In November 2010, we began a webinar course, this time through the Office of English Language Programs in Washington, appealing to English teachers worldwide. The response floored us. One thousand teachers from 50 countries attempted to register. For the live webinars, we have been receiving 250 to 550 participants. This has put demands on the technology because we have been pushing the participant limits for our license of Adobe Pro Meeting. We have had to find alternative ways to interact with the participants as well. One can imagine that with 450 participants the chat box explodes with comments. We have incorporated more polls and more visuals in the slides. The advantages of the webinar format are obvious. Instead of sending trainers around the world, we can reach huge numbers of teachers by webcasting from the United States or any location. We can invite specialists. We can design tasks—provided the numbers of participants are not too huge—to involve teachers.

The webinar is here to stay—until something better comes along, anyway.

THE LAYOUT

Here are some nuts and bolts on how a webinar actually works.

In an Adobe Acrobat Pro Meeting, there is a dedicated meeting room, or in our case the classroom. Any data placed in here is visible or audible to participants. The key tools for participant involvement are chat boxes and polls. Polls show instant results to any surveys the hosts post. Meanwhile, participants can type questions and comments into a chat box. The host can use a whiteboard as well, and actually type in text or draw.

Several kind of media can be shared as well: videos (.flv files), audio (.mp3 or .wav), and PowerPoint or Keynote slideware, Word docs, and photos. Presenters can talk live to their audience via microphone. Participants are also able to talk live if the microphone is “handed over”—that is, if participants are given permission by the webinar moderators.

ADJUSTING TEACHING STRATEGY

Although we are using the same tools one would use in a modern classroom, the approach to a web class requires different management strategies.

In a brick-and-mortar classroom―especially in language teaching where the learners may have different levels of English command―it's important for the presenter to provide gaps or spaces in his or her speech so that the listener will have the time to absorb. Though we don’t want to fill airspace with babble in a web class, the presenter must think a little more like a radio host and not allow for too much dead air. Otherwise, participants will scurry to see what technical problem they have, and they will lose focus. The web presenter should speak more slowly than usual, however, aware that part of words and sentences may be clipped and unintelligible, and that a slower pace allows participants to mentally fill in these unintended gaps, just as we naturally do when someone cuts out for a moment on a cell phone.

The presenter’s voice is usually working in tandem with PowerPoint. Conventions say that a PowerPoint slide should contain no more than a few phrases, but webinar slides, we have found, should be denser. In this way, if participants lose audio, they can still keep up through visual cues.

We have also divided presentation roles and tasks. On occasion, we have presented a webinar together, sharing the microphone, presenting material, and covering for the other by responding to questions on the chat. Most of the time, however, we have found it more fluent to have one person present and the other work as a host. The host introduces the session, leads the chat, and supports the presenter with technical matters.

Our webinar sessions almost always include a few separate audios or videos. These tend to play very well in Adobe Acrobat Meeting, usually sounding better than the presenter’s microphoned voice, and provide welcome variety. It’s so simple to find relevant audio (from interviews, newscasts, songs, poems, Voice of America podcasts, etc.) and video (from YouTube or TeacherTube). Webucators might as well take advantage.

Despite the need to talk more than usual and involve more media, we've tried to make webinars interactive and to foster interaction, a sense of community, and collaboration. We have engaged participants throughout with polls and surveys and asked them to type in answers to gap-fills and riddles and critical thinking puzzles, brainstorm on the whiteboard, and even participate in live guessing games. Participants are also invited to carry on our discussions onto other forums, such as the Ning site we developed for teachers in the region. We also encourage the teachers to join in other communities of practice.

Perhaps one can see that in general, greater time and care needs to be taken in leading an effective webinar. Materials must be uploaded well ahead of time, transitions must be carefully planned, and fail-safes must be at hand. Experienced teachers in a classroom can overcome problems by improvising; this is nearly impossible when conducting a web class. Contingency plans are essential, as is technical support.

ALTERNATIVES

Adobe Acrobat Connect is expensive, not geared toward individual teachers. One free alternative worth looking into is WiziQ where teachers can create a similar virtual classroom. Another option is the very user-friendly and reliable www.nicenet.org for a basic content management system or Ning.org, which provides more social networking features.

Rick Rosenberg, rickrelo@gmail.com, is currently the materials branch chief of the Department of State’s Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs (Englishprograms.state.gov). Rick was recently the regional English language officer based in Jordan. Rick has helped establish a number of distance education courses in the region and participates often as a moderator of online courses offered for Iraqi teachers.

Kevin McCaughey, poosheesty@yahoo.com, is a senior English language fellow based in Aqaba; Cape Town, South Africa; and Jordan. Kevin writes and records his own audio materials, which are offered at the Web site for teachers worldwide, English Teachers Everywhere.