Reflection on Presentation

Tonight, I had the opportunity to host an Elluminate session with our class and discuss my class project. The presentation went better than expected technology-wise, and I was quite pleased. Typically, when using the Elluminate software with a group for the first time, I like to host a test session to make sure everyone's system is ready to go. But, this time, I wasn't able to plan a test session early enough to have everyone attend. Nevertheless, everything worked out, so I'm glad.

I spent the first part of the presentation demonstrating Elluminate's features (text and audio chat, polling, application sharing, the whiteboard, video, et cetera). Although I've demonstrated the software plenty of times, I always learn something new each time I demo it. Also, my classmates were impressed with the features of the software and mentioned that they saw great potential for use of the software for distance learning. So, I feel like my decision to use Elluminate instead of MOO was worth the effort.

Another good thing to come out of the presentation was the constructive comments I received. I will certainly use many of the ideas given to me as I continue to plan my project. Some of the comments included suggestions to (1) divulge my "hidden agenda" to my audience (to expose them to technologies typically used in online classes within their degree program) and (2) revisit my goals and objectives and re-write them to emphasize the items that can genuinely be grasped within such a short time frame (i.e., students will leave the session feeling more comfortable with music... , students will leave the session being more aware of how technology can be used to deliver lessons related to music, et cetera).