I have to admit that when I saw the title for this section, I was thinking about dating sites. Wrong kind of meeting.
My library does not currently use any online conferencing or meeting tools. I think that it would be interesting to use Skype an Author. In this time of budget cuts, I doubt that my school would be willing to spend money to have an author actually come to campus, but virtual visits might be possible. I can see where videoconferencing might be useful for students who are homebound or away from campus on school trips. Possibly a webinar could be set up to inform parents about the use of our databases and other resources.
I have attended some webinars and online meetings. For the most part, they are effective. The only problems that I have noticed are those that are caused when the technology doesn't work as it is supposed to. I remember one conference where we had to have the presenter on a speaker phone because his voice would not project over the computer speakers. It's always good to have a backup plan.
Another time that I use online meeting programs is when I have to ask my tech support people to fix my computer. At some times I give them control of my computer and it is really strange to sit there and watch as things just seem to move around the screen all by themselves.
One tool that I do have in my library that has some of the features of web conferencing is SMART Sync. It allows the teacher to see student's computer screens, send messages or files to them, even control individual computers if needed. There are a lot of features that allow for interaction between teacher and students and between groups of students.
I was happy to see the list of archived TSLAC webinars. I plan to spend some time looking through those and finding a few that I would like to register for. I'm sure there are a lot that will be useful.
Time spent on Method #10--approximately 1.5 hours
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