Darren Kuropatwa recently asked me to chair a chat session in Skype whilst he
was giving a presentation. Quite why he asked me, given my scepticism on the
efficacy of things like this, I don't know. But I did my best, and the resultant
recommendation will depend on who you are....
First, though, a definition. I'm sure there will be a purist or two who tell
me this is incorrect, but in my view chatcasting and back-channelling are one
and the same: the carrying out of a conversation using an instant messaging-type
tool, during a presentation.
Now, the potential advantages and disadvantages of this are obvious. On the
one hand, people can clarify points, throw the odd website address into the mix,
and generally enrich the whole event. And, of course, there is a permanent
record of the chat to which people can refer later.
On the other hand, it's easy to miss bits of the presentation, and easy to
get side-tracked during the discussion.
I've said all this before, here and here. But until recently I had experience only of
participating in a chatcast, not managing one. Now that I took Darren up on his
flattering request, I'm in a position to view both sides.
Darren's idea was deceptively simple. Whilst giving a presentation to some teachers in Denver, he wanted a
chatcast to be taking place. This would become part of the delegates' homework
for Day 1. He asked me to "captain" (his term) the chatcast, by which he meant
chair the conversation, throw out challenges and, crucially, to relay to anyone
not present what Darren was saying. He also hoped that, following my example,
one or two of the delegates would be able to captain the chatcast the following
day.
From a user's point of view, the chatcast was an undoubted success, by and
large. For example, Peggy George, whom I've mentioned before in these pages,
said:
"That was some of the best professional development I've had in a long
time."
I thought the links and the clarification of bits I missed great as well, and
Sharon Peters has also written about
this, and chatcasting in general, in glowing terms. But what was it like
managing it?
Well, first we need to outline the process involved. The idea was that I
would call Darren via Skype at the appointed hour. That would enable me to hear
what was being said. It would also open up a (blank) chat window, to which the
delegates could be added. In order to be added, they would have to download and
register on Skype, and then add me as a contact so I'd know who they were.
In order to evaluate this process after the event, I set up a Google
spreadsheet, to which Sharon Peters contributed. Here are my conclusions.
Inviting people into chat was quite frenetic, with requests to exchange
details popping up all over the place, and then attempting to add them to chat.
There were several issues, in fact:
First, there were lots of people requesting to be added to my contact list at
same time. I would suggest that the presenter ask organisers to include in the
conference details a set of pre-course requirements to include joining skype,
twitter etc. Alternatively, give people time at the start of the day as well, eg
start 15 mins earlier. Sharon agrees:
"We always have our WOW2 guests give us their skype
info ahead of time to avoid this issue.", she says.
Second, I couldn't see some people after we'd exchanged contact details, and
so couldn't add them to chat straight away. This would have been avoided had
their details been known in advance, but if that isn't possible then perhaps
delegates should be asked to state their real name, if it isn't obvious, and why
they are asking to be added to your contacts. For example:
"I'm Fred Bloggs and I'm in Joe Soap's presentation."
Third, as far as chairing the chat is concerned, it's a good idea to have
more than one lined up. It's hard to answer everyone's questions and
keep track of what's going on. In this case Bud the Teacher
helped out and others chimed in. It was good, as it turned out, but it might
easily have not been.
Sharon goes even further:
"Having one anchor is a good idea - perhaps a chair (captain) and an anchor
whose job it is to keep folks on topic. Might be good idea to have a techie in
the background for tech support too?"
Fourth, have a rota. I was "on" for three hours, and was pretty tired by the
end of it. That's too much for one person, even if you're sharing the load.
Fifth, Skype has severe limitations. For example, I was able to invite only 9
people to join me in a conference call so that they could hear the presentation
too. I wanted to do that because another "feature" of Skype is that it sometimes
drops the connection, and I knew that if that happened to me it would be a
disaster. A better solution, though, would be to investigate live streaming
solution.
Sixth, Skype has a webcam facility, and with the benefits of hindsight I
would say that Darren should have had a webcam pointing at the screen, so I
could see what he was showing.
Finally, there are legalistic issues to sort out. You need, for example, to
inform people that anything they say or type could end up in the public domain.
I should think that, technically, one should ask people to sign something to say
they agree. At the moment, all this stuff is in the experimental phase, so I
doubt that anyone is too bothered about it at the moment. However, presenters
might like to consider incorporating something in their "blurb" to the effect
that the presentation might be podcast or chatcasted.
In conclusion, I would say that participating in a chatcast is one thing, but
managing one effectively is a whole other level. It's not for the faint-hearted,
and not something I would recommend doing off the cuff. This one worked well
because Darren had thought through what he wanted and had people set up to
undertake various tasks, the people he'd approached took their role seriously
and there were people in the chatcast who were more than willing to lend a hand.
But because of the technical and managerial issues I've outlined here, more
detailed planning would be advisable.
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