Personal Evaluation and Review of my mini-conference

• What went well, and what did not go so well- Not too much to report here. I would have liked more participants, however those who said they would come on, didn't, just my business coach Kerene. I also put the event out on Twitter and through Vasi to NorthTec staff, there was no response. I have heaps to learn about marketing with social network tools, heaps. If I were to do be in a similar position next year, there would be a deal more people. A couple of bits like loosing one slide and being late in turning on the recording led me to rethink the value of a backroom person, which would be useful next time, but ofcourse in WizIQ.
• How the event was organised and promoted- I contacted through FB people I know who would be interested in this, also put it out through other networks, as well as FO2010. Perhaps the topic wasn't too thrilling, I don't know. What I do know is most people in my circle think this is way out of their ability range, that could well be the issue.
  • adequate information- I covered this using my blog, wikieducator and emails
  • support (technical and access)- Eluminate was very cooperative, as Sarah was unable to be a staff member I was flying solo and that didn't feel too bad, actually.
  • relevant for the audience- yup it was
• Whether the event was managed and conducted smoothly - particularly noting how you handled any disruptions.- There were few disruptions, 1 only minor when a guest turned up, in such a case I welcome through the text box.
• What efforts you made to ensure that all participants knew where they were supposed to be and when, and arrange technical support for people?- I posted 3 times on the mini-conference site, 3 times by email, and twice by twitter, once mine and once Vasi's account. to each guest i offered them a prior experience in Elluminate, as it happened Kerene came in late and winged it well. Vasi and I spent 2 periods of time on Elluminate to prepare.
• How you set the stage, made introductions, explained the aims, and whether you managed to remain neutral and facilitatory. I set the stage with a welcome, which i will improve on now, the initial slides are useful and we need to cover the base of newbies not knowing how to operate in the space. I had set up my slides to start with a welcome of images, mine was the London Underground tube map, and I was to ask each person to put in a phrase describing themselves and where they came from or an image. I did explain the aims, etcs and facilitation continued to the end.
• How you did a round up, drew closure and indicated where recordings and other follow up materials would be made available. This was not good, I needed to handle this far better, I know I do this F2F all the time, but I think I just had too much on my mind. I had told people in my emails, blog and wikieducator where the recording would be and asked them to comment on my blog. No one has done that.
• Feedback from audience- the audience was excellent, very engaged, nothing after that though
• How you would do things in the future; become much more familiar with WizIQ, i will ask people in FO2010 if they are willing to swap learning sessions. Learn how to do such clever things like placing links into the text box, things that 2nd nature to some and I still have no idea on.
• General comments and additions. As is the case with assessments I was far more nervous about the mini than about the World OT session. That is because this meant so much more to me than other learning I have done in the past. I am committed to doing the course again in 2011 to develop my familiarity and competence.