Best Platform for Interactive Webinars?

[Tracy Pattin]

What is the best platform to do online interactive workshops where participants can ask questions and even demonstrate the teacher's techniques for feedback from the experts?

[Douglas E. Welch]

I played around with http://dimdim.com the other night. Also, if you wanted to have people talk back to you, or perform a scene or script, both http://uStream.tv and http://Stickam.com have the ability to add in video users and share their video and audio with an audience. Another web-based system us http://TokBox.com which allows up to 6 people to have a video chat session.

On a more grand scale, you can have people do a video Skype Call and then mix that into a stream using a traditional video mixer, much like you would see done on CNN or the Oprah specials. Once you bring in the big guns, anything becomes possible. I have even seen s show done where the remote co-host was simply on the screen of one laptop while a camera shot the local host and the laptop screen. Low-tech but it actually worked pretty well.

If you want an opportunity to play around with these systems, let me know and I will set up a NMI demo night for each one.

Douglas

Douglas

[Tracy Pattin]

Thanks Doug! This is great. Just the info I needed!

[Julia Young]

Tracy - If you are still looking for a platform for interactive webinars, please visit www.Facilitate.com and take a look at FacilitatePro. This tool was designed for and by facilitators and focuses on the interactive part of any effective web meeting or webinar. So many webinars are presentation-heavy and interaction-light. This tool provides the equivalent of the Post-it Notes, flip charts and sticky dot voting tools that we might use in an in-person meeting or workshop to fully engage participants. Interestingly enough by "going virtual" we often increase the level of engagement, participation and interaction by allowing everyone to "talk" at once, typing in their ideas and reading and commenting on each other's all on a shared electronic flip chart. Ideas are quickly organized into themes or categories and available for voting or prioritizing in all manner of ways. The FacilitatePro tools are designed to be easy to use and intuitive for facilitators as they set their agendas.

As a facilitator I have been working with collaborative technology for over 17 years, first in face-to-face sessions and then online. I rarely use the traditional web conferencing tools that focus on pushing information (mostly slides) out to participants and rather opt for tools that allow me to pull ideas in from participants - and all at once! The facilitator or session leader is a key player here - providing useful background information in advance to prepare participants, creating interesting and provocative questions to get them thinking, providing tools for brainstorming and idea generation to get everyone engaged, and facilitating an interesting dialogue that reflects on the ideas or stories or issues or.... that we have come up with.

We have several case studies on the web site as well as live software for you to look at. I run regular webinars that demonstrate a different kind of virtual meeting - both specifically about the FacilitatePro tools and on a wide range of non-technology-specific facilitation tips and techniques. Please contact me if you would like to participate in one of these and I will be delighted to send you an invitation.

Julia Young, Facilitate.com, San Francisco, CA
www.Facilitate.com
www.Facilitate.com/blog

[Mitch Krayton]

I want to check this service out, too

[Mitch Krayton]

Web based services are all over the net. SaaS. These are platform agnostic. There is little reason to use local software anymore IMO. Douglas' suggestions are great. Also try yuuguu.com and for Mac folks try iChat.

You can push the video/display images on one service and use another service, like a phone patch such as freeconferencecall.com or even Skype, to handle the voice traffic. Helpful to know alternatives if some people are not in broadband sites.