I began the week by researching various
broadcasting services and found that ustream.com seemed to be the most
straightforward site to use. I
figured since the assignment emphasized the need to do a few tests, I asked my
mother to check out a practice broadcast on Wednesday. She did, and all seemed to work
well. I planned the formal webcast
to happen Saturday morning, and felt pretty prepared for the process. Since the topic was open, I figured
instead of doing something “teacher-y,” I would do something more challenging
for me: cooking! I asked my
husband if he would show me how to make something live (he is quite a cook!),
and we decided since we were celebrating my mom’s and aunt’s birthday this
weekend, we would show the audience the secrets to his Funny Bone cake – not
only does he make this for our family celebrations, people often ask him to
make it for their personal celebrations, too.
As Saturday morning approached (airtime was
8:30 am), I called and emailed those few people I wanted to attend. I really wasn’t very comfortable
putting myself out there on the web, but thinking about the assignment
directions, I felt I had to “step out of my comfort zone” in order to fully
complete the assignment. So, I did it: I advertised through my Facebook
account! Ok, I’ll be honest, I
didn’t create an “event,” or announce it to all of my friends, (I have former
students on there who graduated thinking I was cool!), but I did invite a large
number of people. Once I hit
“send” on my invitation, the nerves began to spread quickly. All morning I ran around the house
announcing how much time was left until airtime! The plan was to set up my laptop in the kitchen for the
show. This was a bad mistake, as I
had practiced on my desktop in the living room. The problems began to mount quickly: Java files had to be
updated, the onboard camera could not be read, the volume levels were poor, and
nothing I tried seemed to fix any problem.
With twenty minutes left now until broadcast
time, I completely disconnected our main computer, carted it into the kitchen,
and began setup once again. By
this point, the wireless wasn’t connecting, the professional camera I wanted to
use couldn’t be read, and a lot of confectioners sugar got spilled on the
ground in the craziness of both me getting the technology prepared and my
husband getting his cake in order.
I called my mom once more to do a last test. She gave me the OK, and by 8:30 exactly, we were going
live. It was pretty scary to see
the viewer numbers rising! This
meant we had to deliver. Fortunately
for me, my husband is never at a loss for words, so I could try some things
like get a poll going (and occasionally sink into the corner). Our show ended up running for almost 18
minutes. In the end, we received a
lot of accolades through Facebook, and I found that most people prefer
chocolate as their birthday cake-of-choice.
I did try to record the broadcast, but I am
not sure where the recording went.
If all else fails, I will try to contact ustream support. I have to admit, I now love the idea of
live webcasts! I am not sure I
want to be the one in front of the camera, but I really enjoyed preparing for
“the shoot!” I already want to
look into how to use professional cameras vs. the onboard one, and how I could
incorporate multiple shots, B Roll footage and titles while the broadcast is
happening. I could definitely see
me using this in my upper level media classes, only with the students as the
hosts. In the meantime, my family
wants to get a group cooking show going for the future.
Check out my Facebook page to see what viewers had to say:
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