A Crazy Event

I was honoured to be asked by Dean Shareski to present technology in a primary classroom for his on line education course with the University of Regina. Kathy Cassidy, Angie Harrison and I were presenting together (another huge honour for me). Anyhow I diligently put a presentation together and sent my slides off to Dean to have them uploaded into BlackBoard Collaborate.  Tonight it was show time.

About 30 mins before we were set to go live I figured I'd log into the site. Not a big deal I thought, I've been in BlackBoard Collaborate many many times before.  But boy was I ever wrong this evening.  After trying pretty much everything I could I just couldn't get into the room.  Thankfully I was the third to present so I had a bit of time.  The brain was spinning, the frustrations mounting.  The funny thing is I was presenting on video conferencing in a primary classroom, you know using tools like Skype, FaceTime, or Google Hangout.  So what did I do? I turned on all those tools.  Quickly Angie skyped me and I was able to hear what Kathy was saying.  We figured if I could hear the presentation through Skype and Angie's computer, then I could speak my part that way too. And you know what... I did!

My set up, skyping into Angie's home looking at the session through her computer.

Technology doesn't always work as it should, but it certainly lends itself to great problem solving.  A huge thanks to Dean, Kathy, Angie and all those in the room tonight. It may not have been pretty but we made it work. :-)