Presentation by Calum Thomson (University of Salford) & Rod Cullen (Manchester Metropolitan University) at MELSIG, University of Nottingham event January 2015. The use of webinars to support blended and online learning has increased slowly but surely at both MMU and University of Salford over the past two years. This has presented both opportunities and challenges to those colleagues who have taken the plunge. Calum and Rod have undertaken a series of one-to-one interviews with colleagues delivering webinars to explore their experiences and to try and identify emerging good practice with this exciting technology.

1. Emerging practice with webinars
for blended and online learning
Calum Thomson (University of Salford)
c.j.m.thomson@salford.ac.uk
Dr W. Rod Cullen (Manchester Metropolitan
University)
r.cullen@mmu.ac.uk

2. Webinars
Commonly considered to be shorthand for “web-based seminar”
“… a live online educational presentation during which
participating viewers can submit questions and comments”
Merriam-Webster's Dictionary (1998) via Lustig (2008).
“Webinars are live, interactive teaching and learning activities
(seminars, tutorials, workshops, lectures, etc) delivered via a full-
featured web conferencing system.” Cullen & Thomson (2013)

3. • No institutional
web conferencing
provision
• Lots of interest and
requests to CELT
• Very limited
Expertise
• Pilot use in
MMUBS
• Pilot MMU
webinar series
Evaluation
• Flexibility
– Time
– Place
• Organisation
– Team Teaching
MMU 2012
• Interactivity
– Document &
Screen sharing
– Chat
– Polling
http://www.celt.mmu.ac.uk/ltia/Vol9Iss2/1_cullen_thomson.pdf

4. State of Play 2015
• Institutionally managed
(IT Services), on
request licence
procurement for Adobe
Connect
• Specific MMU URL
http://mmu.adobeconnect.com
• Currently 22 host
licences
• Institutionally
managed service using
Blackboard
Collaborate.
• Enabled through the
VLE.
• Access for all staff.
• Similar take up to
MMU.

5. Semi-structured, one-to-one
interviews with current webinar
users: MMU (12) / Salford (2).
• Planning
• Pre-session activities
• Staff development
• Delivery
• Evaluation activities
Transcription followed by thematic
analysis of each of these key areas.
What are the barriers &
enablers to webinar use?
How is it being used as a
teaching and learning tool
and what are the
techniques?
How are colleagues
evaluating experiences and is
there any emerging best
practice?
What did we do?

6. • School / Faculty Academics
• TEL Champs
• PGCAP Academics
• CELT Staff
• IT Services Staff
Who did we talk to?
0
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
< 1 year 1-3 Years 4-6 Years Over 6
Years
NumberofInterviewees
Experience
Webinar Delivery Experience

7. Common Teaching Use
“I use Skype for one
to one sessions, but
that’s revision and
support, not really
webinar stuff. But it
seems to work.”
“They’re on industrial
placements and they come back
in September. So half the course
takes place while they’re away
from the university via Google
Hangout.”
“About 5 people couldn’t make it
in and they were able to sort of
take part because I sat in front of
the screen and they were literally
a face amongst all the other
people.”
“The first week is
face to face, then
it’s all webinars.
There’s their
portfolio and blog
they have to
develop, but as far
as my contact goes,
it’s YouTube and
Collaborate only.”
0
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
Fully Online
Delivery
Support for
F2F Learners
Blended
Professional /
Block Delivery
Projection of
Classroom
Environment
Online

8. “its a bit like running a radio
show, where you read the
requests!”
“Make sure your slides are all set
and have space for interactive
elements, quizzes, polls, that kind
of thing.”
“Have an agenda, puts timings on it. It's really great when
people start running with the topic, but you need to be
able to cut that off, you need to have key things you to
get through.”
Planning

9. “I asked them to join a
hangout. Just to say hello
one evening. Its from Gilly
Salmons 5 steps, access
and motivation and
online socialisation.”
1) Offer induction materials and support
for initial access.
2) Identify and approach confident
participants to support others, use the
community.
3) Begin with a low stakes activity, allow a
session just to experience the activities.
“We ran a F2F induction session and online
orientation session at the start of the
course. We explained the technology and
equipment involved, and then ran a low
risk session not related to actual teaching.”
Preparing Staff and Participants
“I found some of them
had used it before, so if
others had technical
issues I encourage them
to ask each other on
Google+.”

10. “Make sure you get as much involvement
from those participating as possible. Don't
see it as simply taking somebody through a
series of information. It needs to be a two
way process.”
“If you're just going to transmit stuff,
or even if you just want a
synchronous interaction, then you
could do this on YouTube with the
comments and discussion there, but
if you want dialogue, fresh dialogue,
steaming heads and exchanges then
use webinars for it. ”
“If you deliver it in a way that it seems the
participants aren’t there, its pretty likely that
soon they won’t be. If it’s being recorded
then there no reason not to just watch it at a
more convenient time.”
“If your asking a load of questions, and
getting people to answer. Whether it's the
learners, or an expert, that's maybe where
webinars are really successful. For me, I
found them least successful if I'm
broadcasting a lecture, and there's no
interaction. .”
Activities

11. Formal
• Institutional Surveys
• Focus Groups
• Observations (recorded)
Responsive
• Observations (live)
• Reflective reports
• Back channel (Twitter /
Chat) prompts
“You could do some formal stuff,
but I think the most important
thing is to respond in real time to
the situation and evaluate its
effectives there and then, rather
than review it at the end of term,
or even evaluate it at the end of
the week.”
Evaluation Techniques
“So really what I should've done is
prepare a questionnaire at least
that we could then have
distributed people with set
questions and then maybe some
open questions as well.”

12. • Move from planning to present, to planning to
engage.
• Support access, motivation and online socialisation
through low stakes initial activity.
• Deliver didactic content outside the webinar. Use the
webinar time for interaction and dialogue.
• Evaluate in real time and be responsive.
Overview of Recommendations

13. “The irony is that you think, well if I
can do this in a webinar, then I can do
this in the classroom. Less broadcast
style lectures, more interactive
engagement. So its actually changing
and improving my classroom
behaviour!”

14. • Calum Thomson – c.j.m.thomson@salford.ac.uk
• Rod Cullen - r.cullen@mmu.ac.uk
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