I have not viewed a webcast in a couple years, but took a chance last week in viewing a live webcast with my sixth grade class. It was terrific!!! It was a School Library Journal webcast live with Rick Riordan talking about his new book The Serpent's Shadow. Riordan was broadcasting (Is that the term that should be used for a live webcast?) from an Egyptian museum in California. He toured parts of the museum and discussed several of the artifacts and how they appear in his new book. Then he read a passage from the book that drew my students into the presentation.
I knew the presentation was going well when several of the students moved up closer to the screen to see and hear. They also enjoyed the supplemental information on the screen, that included the video, a rotating slideshow of drawings of characters in the book, as well as a chat box. The students asked me to enlarge the pictures next to the video, so they could see the drawings of the characters better.
This was a great, free way to bring a big name author of a top selling book into our library. During the question and answer session, the kids hung on every question because they were waiting to see if any of the questions we asked would be answered. We did learn lots of interesting things about the books and Riordan.
