What if you could catch up on all the latest agricultural workshops without losing a day’s work on the farm or burning up a tank of gas to get there?
Welcome to the brave new world of the “webinar” launched for public consumption by Manitoba Agriculture last week.
Linda Ryckman, an extension co-ordinator with the department, said almost 40 people registered to watch the presentations from Crops Day in Souris, Man., last week without leaving the comforts of home.
By clicking on a link at the gotomeeting.com website, they were able to watch the proceedings in real time on their computers and ask questions via telephone conference call.
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“I’ve had phone calls from people who want copies of the webinars and people are interested in more sessions,” she said. “They’re recorded, so people can go anytime and watch them.”
For those who missed out on the live version, recorded presentations in Windows Media format with audio and video can be downloaded from the gotomeeting.com website. E-mail linda.ryckman@gov.mb.ca, and she’ll send you a link.
But since the files are quite large, dial-up internet users might be better off requesting a free copy of the presentations on a CD-ROM.
Ryckman said government employees have been using the technology to save time and their travel budgets for the past year and a half.
“It’s a conference call and a webcast,” she said, adding that for live webinar participants, the only cost is for phone charges. Since the trial run was a success, more webinars are in the pipeline, she added.
Mac computer users are out of luck, since the website only supports the Windows 2000 operating system. Their only option is to request the webinars on CD-ROM and view them using Windows Media player for Mac, which is available on-line as a free download.
