Week 3 ~ Webinars

For this week's "thing", I watched the archived webinar "25 Technologies to Watch and How", originally presented by Stephen Abram back on 1/31/08. Stephen actually presented about 30 technologies/ideas to "watch" (including podcasts, presence management, and tools like Google Reader) as well as wrap-up advice for using them (namely, play!) I enjoyed the mix of ideas presented and agree this was a helpful suggestion for this week's Thing, although much of it is already long-familiar...how things change...

My past experience with webinars has been sitting in a conference room watching hour-long presentations for single-dose continuing ed. I've never attended one that didn't teach me anything, and I much prefer having something to look at - sitting in a darkened room with only a voice can dull my focus. "25 Technologies..." utilized very simple slideshow-style topic headings, which worked fine for me because I could jot down an idea or look away without missing anything.

I prefer face-to-face presentations for the immediate interaction, brainstorming potential and sponteniety. I'm just and old-fashioned girl. This bias aside, webinars are super-useful and I'll use them more (thanks to 23 Things for posting the huge lists of archives!) I think webinars are invaluable and will proliferate even more over the next ten years. I feel like this is a very stock, college-entrance-exam sort of answer, but really, I don't think they're going away.