Delivering eTwinning Webinars

An Online Experience

eTwinning is an online platform, a social networking 'hangout' for teachers who want to collaborate online with colleagues from all over Europe. Online eTwinning Seminars - called Webinars - had been happening for years, mostly run by experts in the field of Education of course. As time went by, and eTwinning became more than just a portal - it became a 'live' meeting place for educators, with the possibility for mere teachers to host online events through Adobe Connect (sponsored by all participating NSS). I had dabbed in organising webinars in the past; about one per term to be honest. Then, from January 2015 onwards, I tried to up the ante - and hold two to three sessions per term. The results were surprising, in more ways than one.

First, I thought that the fact that teachers would be able to attend webinars from the comfort of their home would be more enticing to them than having to drag themselves, after work, and sit for two hours listening to yours truly harp about the benefits of eTwinning or some online tools which I liked the sound of at the time of the seminar. WRONG. It was just as difficult to garner an audience for an online seminar as it had been for procuring an audience for face to face activities. The first time I thought I would be able to get away with advertising only on our online channels - website, Facebook page, Twitter- wrong on all counts. It took the publication of a predictable letter circular to get the ball (and bookings) rolling. Once the appropriate 'advertising' was in place, people started joining and registering. Since then I have always had a steady audience of 15 + participants; which bearing in mind the relative low cost of holding training online versus face to face training, was a good outcome.

Second, after running a couple of webinars, the obvious hit me: Why not hold joint webinars with other NSS or PSA ? The 2016 Activity Plan urged NSS to up our collaboration with eTwinning Plus Countries (Armenia, Azerbaijan, Moldova, Georgia, Ukraine and Tunisia).  Given the distances and obvious logistical problems to actually send and receive teachers from these countries (except of course Tunisia), holding joint online webinars felt like the perfect solution. Admittedly only two countries answered our call  - Ukraine and Georgia - but still, I was really happy to have at least those two countries on board.

So far I have managed to hold 4 joint webinars between our countries and have a last one lined up for June 2016. I was glad to have 40+ participants this time, and it was then that I really realised the potential of online webinars: one can have as big an audience as one wants, and everyone will get the same experience. No sitting at the back of the room trying to understand what was going on. By simply sharing my screen, I was able to navigate through the topics at hand....eTwinning Live, Project Showcase, TwinSpace, Online Tools, Coding....and made sure everyone was following by regularly asking for people's opinions and using the Chat facility as well as video conferencing tools to  regularly check for sound problems. I also kept the Facebook Page online messenger system open to be available to help if someone was bumped out of the session or had connectivity problems.

Overall....online webinars were a very positive experience and one that I would like to expand and increase in regularity. Apart from eTwinning Plus Countries, I plan to hold webinars with 'clusters' of NSS, such a Nordic Countries, Slavic Countries....slowly getting to know different teachers online and giving the possibility to our educators to broaden their horizons.