Webinar

We started off learning the webinar by doing practise run through of just us on the computers and Karla as the pupil. The technology was so simple to use when you got the hang of it, we just had to log on, open the Webinar tech, plug in our webcams and head sets and then off we where! At first there where slight problems with time delays, and the feedback we would get because we where all in the same room as each other. We thought about being in separate rooms but felt like we should all be in the room together facilitating together. In the end we combated this by each person only turning there mike on when they where speaking and this made for a clearer session. The only difficulty with the technology was that we had to remember to when to turn our mikes and webcams on and off when each of us where doing our pieces.

I think this is a very useful medium for teaching six hats. Sitting a pupil on a computer (along as they are monitored) can be a very engaging experience. It forces them to focus there whole attention on the screen or they are lost. The fact that the training video comes up on each of there separate screens is also more engaging (I would think) and also BETTER QUALITY, than if we where teaching it to a class and it came up on a white board.

The experience of actually delivering it to the first the Walsaw staff, and then the pupils was actually such a smooth and fun experience. It actually ran much smoother than when ever we did it in a class room, and again I think that technology is engaging and excites people and having your own computer and headset makes it a very personal experience. The teachers had so many facts which meant that we had a wealth of alternatives and positives and negatives and they really enjoyed the webinar. With the pupils it was only slightly more challenging. Challenges included the fact that pupils could private chat with one another, but this was immediately stopped when Nathan asked them to over the microphone. Another was with the benefits, it is often very hard to find benefits for a statement like 'universities should raise fees to £9,000 a year', and at first some said they couldn’t but we told them that everyone has to contribute one comment. After that they came up with many creative and clever benefits to the statement. With pupils it is much the same as in a classroom; as long as you keep facilitating them and guiding them they will engage and work.

My overall impressions of learning via webinar are extremely positive. I mentioned before shy pupils and I think they are even more liberated behind a computer. The positives of distance learning is the distractions are less for pupils, as long as a teacher is monitoring them, because they are all engaged on an individual programme. Technology is exciting and new and if we are honest we know that this is enough alone to interest pupils just that little bit more. I couldn’t see any major cons for this, only the same cons that come up in an everyday classroom and need to be dealt with.

My Six Hat Experience

Learning Edward De Bono's six hat thinking has been such a valuable experience for me. For years I have very much enjoyed debating, but after learning six hats I have come to realise that most debates just run on feelings with no facts or information on the subject. People who are loud and articulate with strong emotional responses to the debate topic will always come through. The reason Six Hats is so important to be taught in a class room environment is that for a start it encourages people to use all of there brain, to really stretch themselves and to go out and inform themselves on the topic. Also this is a much less aggressive form of debate, the pupils who are quiet and never usually speak up, the people who are actually probably terrified to put themselves in the firing line and get involved in a debate are much more inclined to get involved in the less volatile setting of a Six Hat debate. I used Six Hat thinking to help me pick my final University choice, and it really helps to organise your thoughts and not be overcome by my emotions while still giving me room for emotion. It also gave me a reason to go and find out about all the info I needed and compare it, info like rent, grants for different universities, how expensive the areas is etc.