Tuesday, September 23, 2008

Council for Exceptional Children Chapter 877 Meeting

I am going to try something new this year and use Flash Meeting for our CEC 877 online meetings. I have been meeting on Sunday mornings with teachers from New Zealand and Australia using Flash Meeting. At first I just typed in my messages in the chat windows while everyone talked using their microphones and had webcams showing their faces. After a few weeks I got brave and started using my microphone to talk. For the past few weeks I have been using my web cam so I feel I’m part of the face to face meeting. I have spent enough time to see how much this type of meeting can really be effective.

We have all had trouble in our busy schedules to fit one more meeting into our day so I love the thought of being able to access a meeting from wherever I can connect to the internet. I also like the flexibility of using the webcam or not using it (depending on how bad I feel I look at the time). With the struggling economy and higher gas prices, I think this is a great option for people to have and still stay connected professionally with colleagues. I foresee more and more meetings being held online for this reason. I am also impressed with Flash Meeting because it is so easy to join the meeting and there isn’t a lot of fuss with scheduling.

If you are interested in finding out more about our meetings, please go to our CEC 877 wiki and I will be listing meeting dates, times, and topics here. Our first meeting will be tonight at 7:30pm Eastern Time. You do not have to be a member of CEC to attend our meeting. Feel free to drop by and see how we are doing!

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