Last week I taught a Webinar on the intersection of divorce law and bankruptcy law.  I have taught CLE before, and I have been recorded when teaching CLE before.  Last week, though, was the first time that I have taught a presentation where I was teaching solely to a camera.  Now, there were quite a few people watching live from their computers; and I received 5 or 6 questions by the end of the session.  I couldn’t see any of that, though.  All I could see was the big, blue eye on the camera.  The only other person in the room was the tech who was running the transmission feed and who wrote down the questions as they came in and walked them over to me.  I have to say it was an interesting experience, but not one that I am sure I want to do again.

First of all, I went through my material much faster than I expected.  I think that is a result of having no visual feedback.  I hadn’t realized how much I cue off of the expressions of the audience.  I started wondering afterwards just how fast I had to have been talking.  When I got questions, it was all at once at the end of the segment.  They were written in the Tech’s handwriting who brought them to me.  I had no idea when they were written, who wrote them and they had no facial expression or body language attached.  I’m not sure why that matters, but it does.

I’m all for virtual, and I am all for making things more accessible to people whenever and wherever they are.  I just think that the whole experience would have been better for all concerned if there had been a few real, live students in the room with me.

Oh, I said at the time that I would put the questions and answers up here; and I will — just as soon as I remember to take the questions home with me.

Elaine