EDLD 5333 Web Conference 6/16/11

Dr. Mixon's web conference over the Week 4 assignment was very informative. I greatly appreciated everyone's professionalism and commitment to the topic at hand. Dr. Mixon did a great jobmaking sure to respond to everyone's pertinent questions and thanking students who answered other quesitons for him. There were still a few random questions about ILD, LCE, and TEXES exams; but for the most part, students stayed on task. It was very interesting to learn that students in the tenth, eleventh, or twelfth course were "grandfathered in" and did not have to use TK20 accounts. I was excited to learn that I qualified for a full refund; even more importantly, I did not have to transfer all my logs to the new system. It was also interesting to learn about the process for field supervision, internship, and graduation, especially since those events are so close! YAY! The difference between this web conference and my previous experience is due to the maturity of the participants, I believe. Last time, there were several students within the first 12 hours of their graduate coursework. Thus, when those close to graduation mentioned LCE, ILD, and TEXES, it opened a whole new can of worms that quickly derailed the conference. This time, the majority of the participants were in the same stage of their coursework and thus helped created a common knowledge background that helped the conference proceed much more smoothly. It's a great lesson in how grouping students (and professionals) can greatly affect the outcome of any training.