Cyber-Coaching: An Emerging Model

This DimDim conference this week was interesting. I am glad I got this chance to take part the way I did because it made me think about things I would do the same way and things I would change. Those I would do the same way are the following:
• Make it voluntary and get people to sign up.
• Showing the power point presentation while discussing the PPP is great.
• Posting that PPP in the announcements section of the class helped reinforce the message.
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The things I would change if possible when I run the meeting are the following:
• Limit the number of people in the group to 3 (the number of microphones) plus the instructor.
• If people don’t have a microphone the number of people in the group can go up.
• Give a mini tutorial on the things we discovered in our DimDim session,
o Only one person can use the whiteboard tools at a time
o For some reason private conversations don’t work with some people’s computers
o The textbox for written contributions is below the frame on the right side. You have to scroll down to find it.
o As we can’t see other people to read the clues that tell us when they’ve finished speaking, using the word ‘over’ when you are finished alerts the other people.
o Remind everyone to face the microphone, speak to it, and to speak slowly and carefully. Different microphones and speakers may cause someone’s voice to be delivered in a way that degrades the quality.

I think DimDim would be a wonderful tool to use with a small group in a class, especially for people with technology issues. Some people are wonderfully brave, given their lack of technology skills, to take an online or blended class at all. They will need more support. This could also be used for small group discussion if only a portion of the class missed an important concept or needed a boost to get to higher-level integration on a subject.

I love the way Jennifer Jenkins is willing to try new things and take chances with us. It makes her so much more approachable and takes a lot of weight off my shoulders and mind, seeing that she’s willing to be wrong, doesn’t always know the answer, and admits as much to us. We’ve been very lucky to have her assigned to our class for her practicum.

I discovered software that can be used to create movies on the computer. I’m looking at two different ones, Snapz ProX and Wink. Snapz ProX works for Macs and Wink for pcs. Wink is free and Snapz ProX is $70. Snapz works with Windows for Mac. They look like wonderful tools to have at your disposal if you are teaching classes online. They could be used for an orientation as well as within the class.

I’ve been looking at Google docs as a peer-to-peer tool. It’s easily accessible, easily used, and secure. The chat area in Desire2Learn is also a great peer-to-peer tool, providing a free, safe, and easy to use Instant Messaging tool.

My computer crashed this week taking everything on the hard drive with it. I was pretty proud of myself that I didn’t cry. I was lucky that I had my laptop from school to use as a backup even though that computer drove me nuts.

This experience reminded me of some things and taught me others. The fact that I was proud of myself for not crying reminded me that we all have attachments to inanimate objects and that someone else is not a good judge of the depth of those attachments. It also reminded me that all computers are not equal and taught me to be a little more patient with people whose computers don’t read their minds like mine does.