Well, I finished my final project this evening, after days of wrangling with technical difficulties. When I presented in class a couple of weeks ago about how my group's thoughts had changed regarding Web 2.0, I cautioned about the dangers of letting the technological learning curve get in the way of learning the content. I guess I've been living that myself the last couple of weeks. I've spent more time trying to figure out how to capture an online consensus decision-making exercise than I did designing the instruction itself.
Much of this I brought on myself by deciding to use a software program I didn't know (Camtasia) which, like most rapid e-learning tools, runs only on a PC, and then trying to edit the results in iMovie. Let me warn you kids, don't try this at home. Without going into the gory details, I ended up with a sub-par movie (a .swf actually) of the actual consensus demonstration -- which was to be the heart and soul of my training program. Still, I did prove to myself that even using a program like Elluminate, which wasn't meant for the purpose to which I was putting it, it is possible to facilitate an online, virtual process in much the same way one would a face-to-face session. Of course, of the two, I'd choose face-to-face anytime, but that's not the point. A virtual team is just that-- a team that rarely sees one another. And I was trying to find a way to have them work together meaningfully.
In the end, I was somewhat successful. I just wish I had all those hours back I spent in technological limbo.
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