I recently attended a Crowdcast webinar on a particular software I’d like to learn to use. I often find webinars boring because of their one-sided download of information, but I was interested in the subject matter and the speaker so I decided to give it a try. The actual experience was completely different from what I had expected. Unlike Zoom, Crowdcast facilitated connections between attendees without disrupting the host or the progress of the lesson, allowing for some rich learning moments and collaboration.
Crowdcast is set up so the chat bar is predominately displayed on the bottom half of your mobile device or on the right-hand side of the screen on a laptop. Its design has some fantastic benefits:
- It functions like Twitch in that it’s constantly running and takes up a lot of visual real estate.
- It’s functional the moment the host creates the webinar, which can be days before the event. As soon as I signed up I could enter this virtual meeting place, vote on a poll regarding the content of the lesson, and tune into the chat.
- Many people, myself included, showed up early the day of the event to connect with other attendees and swap LinkedIn profile connections. A week later I am actively talking to 5 individuals in my field who are either in line with or ahead of my instructional design journey.
A webinar platform that facilitates community-building? Remarkable!
As the host was going through the lesson, fellow attendees answered other people’s questions, freeing up the host to focus on the lesson or address the chat as he saw fit. The process was much less disruptive than what I’ve seen offered via Zoom and addressed the needs (and interests) of both advanced and new users of the subject material.
Here is a short video detailing what the experience is like for a host. Take particular note of the “green room” where the host can meet with collaborators to organize before the event goes live. The host can also “call up” speakers by selecting their name from the attendees.
Webinar platforms like this which allow macro- and micro-connections at the same time will be transformative in how we learn virtually. On Crowdcast, free public live events are happening almost constantly. As I write this there are live events covering balloon artistry, collagen, at-home workout routines, and venture capitalism. Try looking for some like-minded individuals: https://www.crowdcast.io/discover
This is indeed an interesting find Lyndsay. Crowdcasting appears to try to add elements that are not available in Zoom to its online environment. I am not sure how well Crowdcasting would alleviate Zoom fatigue, but adding other tangible activities always helps. The closer the experience is to a in person session, the more likely individuals will be willing to participate.
I thought the same at first and then realized Crowdcast may avoid “Zoom fatigue” by not trying to be close to an in-person session. Here are two ways I think it does this:
1. It acknowledges we’re not in a face-to-face lecture and so chatting between attendees wouldn’t be disruptive as long as everyone could still hear the instructor. That’s where the running chat comes in.
2. It acknowledges we often want to network through these workshops by chatting one-on-one or in small groups before or after the presentation and allows us to do that via chat or in the virtual space created before the event begins.
From what I understand, Zoom fatigue sets in when we have to analyze and respond to social cues that are stunted and/or delayed through video chating platforms. We often see and evaluate our own body language in our own camera. A problem webinar/video chatting/virtual collaboration platforms face is figuring out how to reduce the amount of facial-cue reading we’re doing while increasing the interpersonal connection. I think Crowdcast achieves this goal better than most because it creates alternate social spaces within the webinar that does not rely on visual or audio cues.
Hi Lyndsay,
I would say Crowdcasting, as you describe it, is a great example of many of the pieces in our Week 4 provocation.
Mobile learning? Yes, certainly possible, but most people likely access at home via a laptop.
Open Learning: Yes, self-determined, interest guided and independent. Crowdcasting accommodated differences amongst learners and broadened learning outside of the formal education system. As well, it incorporates online communities.
I see examples of life-long learning, problem based learning (solving a problem by accessing knowledge of a group) and situated learning (learning in a real world context). I see informal learning as well as a great example of cognitive apprenticeship, whereby participants are solidifying their knowledge by helping others while at the same time, participants are learning from others with more knowledge of experience in the context of real-life application.
I see connectivism, whereby a new mode of learning has come into existence due to a new technological capabilities
And all of this lives under the umbrella of constructivism, learners creating their own meaning and learning through some sort of interaction with the learning.
I ask myself, “What is our definition of “teacher”? What is it? What is a teacher?”
Thanks for sharing Lyndsay, and nice example for this week’s provocation!
And thank you for your analysis!
I was struck by how small the differences between Crowdcast and Google Meet or Zoom were and how big of an impact they made on UX. Thanks for putting this gut feeling into clarifying words!