I had originally planned to watch the video “Moving WAC to the Web” from 2019; however, after watching the video, the webinar wasn’t exactly what I thought it would be. I am currently a graduate assistant director in a WAC program, and I have been thinking about what it means to remix/remediate content that we deliver in synchronous workshops into online only asynchronous content for faculty/teachers. I thought the webinar would focus on a topic like developing WAC programming for faculty/teachers in online spaces that would either be asynchronous or synchronous, but I do . The webinar itself was helpful in sitting in a space to reflect on accessibility tools offered by online learning management systems–although the speakers are clear to note that these online tools are not the end all be all, reflecting Oswal’s (2013; 2018) critique of the green check mark in Canvas acting as the end-all-be-all for accessibility review (it is not). This webinar also connects with the readings we have done for this module (as well as Module 2, focusing on accessibility). When considering how students are engaging with a course (like on a tablet or cell phone, Rodrigo (2015), attendees in the webinar brought up concerns about accessibility and how it translates to these mobile devices. This notion of access/ibility complicates a one-size-fits-all approach to accessibility because the tools used to develop accessible content on a website/computer may not fully translate or transfer to mobile spaces (or tables/touchscreen devices). But as the presenters argue, thinking rhetorically about accessibility is a way to move away from accessibility as a checklist to accessibility as design.
So as a supplement to the first webinar, I decided to watch another webinar that I thought may align more with what I was hoping the first webinar would be about. I watched “Let’s Get Meta: Designing Interactive Workshops” with Shelley Rodrigo from 2017. I selected this webinar because I have been thinking about how to create asynchronous webinars for faculty/teachers that incorporate some kind of interactivity and active learning compared to more traditional receptive webinars. As a meta-reflective moment, I did not add any comments or edits to the slide deck that was included in the webinar presentation because I did not want ; however, the slide deck is still editable even now, 5 years later, so I could have added comments. Another meta-reflective moment I had while watching the webinar was thinking about accessibility and audio: At one point, there was a participant who was unmuted who was typing loudly, so the audio in the webinar was just typing. Eventually one of the facilitators asked everyone to mute to alleviate the typing noise; however, this is a reality of facilitating online webinars that are recorded for future use. So I would need to consider ways and tools to address this (and plan for this) in advance, like forced muting when joining a zoom room, or just having presenters be able to unmute as co-hosts.
One thing that I am thinking about is whether or not leaving an editable slide deck that encourages interactivity without any kind of follow-up or supervision may allow for bad-faith actors to interact with the document or possibly add comments that are harmful for other participants. So are there ways to offer a somewhat monitored asynchronous interactive webinar, but without having to add on a ton of additional labor? Maybe encourage the participants to make a copy of the slides with the comments so that way the participants can learn from the original attendees? But what about workshops that aren’t just recorded from a synchronous session–how can I make them interactive since learning and writing are social components? I wish I had magic answers, but these are questions I need to keep in mind as I continue to think about designing workshops and programming.
The interactive components from the webinar, especially the modeling that Rodrigo does in the webinar when showing how to use different tools for interaction, made me think about the Rendahl & Breuch (2013) reading for this module, specifically in considering the buy-in from students for different types of interactions. Modeling how to use the tools and platforms, and providing context for what the activity is can help students buy-in to the work (and understand why they are doing it), instead of it being seen as busy work. I wonder about this in terms of webinars for faculty/teachers: How do I continue to frame the how and the why of interactive webinars, instead of assuming that participants are self-selecting to attend, so they hopefully have already bought in to the work.
As a final meta-reflective moment, I want to think about the fact that I first watched a webinar that I thought would be beneficial for me as a learner, but then found out that it wasn’t quite what I was expecting. And I think that this often happens in the WAC programming we offer in our center: We have faculty who show up to workshops and then afterwards have left comments like, “I already knew this. Or this was for beginners.” And even though there is not a perfect answer to this problem, I have been thinking about how to . The GSOLE website has the overview of the webinar, but the title itself was possibly misleading to an audience who did not read the full description (I do not say this as a critique of the presenters, but my own user error in not reading fully but just looking at the titles–and this is something that I need to think about when designing programming). So overall, I think the experience of watching these two webinars has made me think about how intentional I will have to be when designing content/programming for WAC work, and thinking about the modality of the content and how to incorporate both accessibility and interactivity in ways that are apparent and explicit to participants.