Web seminar NSDL

I participated in the Nat. Sci. Digital Library seminar for chemistry teachings on 14 July. The set up was a bit odd but it worked okay. You logged on to see the images, but the audio came over the telephone by dialing a toll free number. This helped deliver sound faster than some web programs seem to be able to do. The visual part looked like it was a download from a smart board. I didn't see the people, just the images they selected and these were not live so they couldn't do live linking. They incorporated a survey where participants beeped their phones for the multiple choice answer.

I found it worthwhile because I had heard of NSDL resources before, but I had never looked at them. This course gave me the incentive to pay more attention to it when it passed through my list serve. I still use a land line with a Princess phone so I had to hold the phone during the entire seminar. A speaker phone would have been easier to use and allow access to the typing chat feature had I wanted to ask questions.

Probably the most useful thing I learned was about the interactive periodic table which has video links for all the elements.

I probably would not have chosen to attend a seminar like this, but giving an hour to it from home was okay. So I am thinking one of the benefits of on line professional development is that I might participate in something I otherwise wouldn't consider. Probably keeping it under an hour is a good thing because it can then fall into the lost time category of other web interaction.