A Reflection on Webinars

 
 

     To start with, I am really passionate about this way of teaching that we were introduced this week "Webinars". We are used to being taught in a class full of students, with our professor in front of us, with an overhead projector screen, but this is not the case with webinars. At the first moment that I saw what webinars were about and how they functioned, it immediately made me think of face-time. It seemed to me as if they were people chatting with one another,and the only distinction was that their topic was related to teaching. While I was watching the two videos that we were introduced, about the way how a lesson can be used, it completely changed my previous idea. I realized that webinars are seminars performed on Web, which can be of different types such as; conferences, meetings or teaching like the one that we were introduced.

     Before a teacher plans a lesson there are a lot of questions that he/she wants to answer. Some of these questions might be related to the appropriate methods or approaches that should be used in class, whether students will get to know the rules in the right way, how they will make lesson more student centered as the modern techniques seeks for, as well as if they will achieve to make the lesson interesting. What we can say for sure is that variety can be the best way to achieve lesson acquisition.

     Technology is becoming an increasingly popular medium through which educational content can be shared, and webinars are one of these mediums. Webinars definitely have their advantages and disadvantages, but mostly their advantages seem to outweigh the latter one. First of all, using webinars means that this way of learning happens on-line, and you can present your lesson to the students despite physical location or distance. On the other side, students do not have to be in class in order to attend this lecture, or be there in the right time. Secondly, students can watch them a second time, or just record them and watch whenever they are free to do it. Thirdly, as some of the students might be at work while face to face lecture is taking place, webinars might reach a large number of attenders. The last but not the least, through webinars students are provided with the opportunity to interact with their professor and their friends if they are a small group.

      On the other hand, there are also some disadvantages of using webinars. One of them is that it seeks for internet access in order to attend these classes. Furthermore, it seeks for computer literacy, because if you do not know how to use it, you will fail. Moreover, as a teacher you have to make sure that you are maintaining students motivation all the time. Lastly, if there is a huge number of student attenders at the same time the level of interactivity between the teacher and them will not be high.

       To conclude,despite their pros and cons, I personally found the webinars very helpful, flexible and interactive means. It is such a great way to teach your students if you are not there physically, and it is much more interesting to both students and teachers. Teaching your students through webinars only asks for internet access and a computer. If you guys have these two and a good will, give it a try at least once in your future career as teachers, because I definitely will. ;)
Thank You!