Tools To Make Webinars More Effective
Online lectures and webinars are an extremely powerful tool for learning, effectively eliminating the problem of distances and allowing people from even the most remote locations to get the education they want. Moreover, this medium provides a lot more opportunities than plain text.
But it isn’t enough to simply listen to webinars and take screenshots from time to time. In order to reap all the benefits, one has to know the right tools – and it applies both to listeners and presenters.
In this article you will find some of them.
1. Lecture Capture Tools
The major problem with webinars and online lectures is their fleeting nature – they provide an easy way to perceive new information and in some cases offer interactivity, so that you can ask your own questions. But once they end, they end. Some services even deliberately make it impossible to record their webinars in order to avoid their redistribution. Fortunately, you can use a http://icecreamapps.com/Screen-Recorder/– an application that allows you to capture screen or any of its areas as a video file to watch later at your discretion.
2. Presentation Making Software
Webinars and lectures which show the face of the presenter for the majority of time can just as well do without video at all. In order to fully use the possibilities of this medium one has to support what he or she says with visual imagery – and nothing does it better than a good presentation.
Good news – you don’t have to possess any specific knowledge to prepare one. There are numerous easy-to-learn presentation-making tools like Prezi which can turn even the most boring topic into a fascinating one.
3. Presentation Sharing Tools
Some presentation tools, like Slide Rocket, are specifically designed for work in groups – in addition to providing you with an efficient way of creating presentations, they allow you to easily share slides with other people and getting feedback from them.
4. Webinar Creation
The times when in order to create a webinar you had to record screen of your computer while you clicked through some pre-made slides are long past. Today it is much easier to use a tool that will deal with all the little things, allowing you to concentrate on creative work. For example, Cisco WebEx provides conferencing in HD video with file and presentation sharing system – all for more than a reasonable price.
5. Web Conferencing
Web conferences, like many other innovations, first became widespread in business circles, but after they proved their effectiveness they entered all possible spheres of human activity – including, of course, education. With their help you may meet with a group of people (from 2 to more than 10), share files, discuss topics and listen to each other.
Some web conferencing tools require monthly fees, others, like MeetingBurner, are free of charge (some others have free trials or free accounts with limited functionality). But whatever you choose, they allow you to meet people from any part of the planet face-to-face, listen to lectures and conduct them, ask and answer questions. Recent studies show that video conferencing study environment allows for even higher percentage of perceived information and student satisfaction than traditional approaches – so it is much more than simply a substitute for a classroom.
The nature of education in general is changing – recent breakthrough in telecommunication technology created possibilities that were hard to believe just 20 years ago. The new generation of teachers, at least those of them who are used to thinking outside the box, are willing to make these changes even more drastic. After all, why remain limited by the old ways which were established when there simply was nothing better.
Melissa is a student of journalism. She is passionate about digital technologies and tries to implement them in the sphere of education.
