Some continuing education providers for adult professionals have begun using Adobe Connect meetings e-learning technology to increase learner engagement. Adobe Connect meetings reflect didactic/mimetic pedagogy in the use of Microsoft PowerPoint slide deck presentations by a presenter that is the teacher, and there is a producer that monitors Chat functions and audio contributions. The initial questions posted in the Adobe Connect Q & A box displayed on the screen are answered by the presenter or producer. However, once the session gets underway, the questions are read aloud by the presenter who asks learners to enter their answers as peers into the Chat section, visible to all learners -- which reflects authentic/synthetic pedagogy use of peer discussion (discursive dimension).

Transformative/reflexive pedagogy is reflected fairly quickly, even in sessions of one-hour duration with over 800 learners. After the presenter prompts learners to answer questions in the Q & A, they also suggest that learners use @Name in Chat posts to communicate among themselves during the session. Discussions between various learners ensue, often to the exclusion of paying attention to the PowerPoint slides, as those will be emailed out to everyone in attendance after the session ends. The presenter now becomes a facilitator, posing a question or concise topic for Chat discussion and various perspectives, organizing up to 6 different response boxes on the screen. Again the @Name is used as applicable, to keep focus on conversations and peer reviews. Control over numbers is obtained by the producer asking learners to select the question/topic most interesting to them (student-driven) and not join more than one box. These sessions always offer at least 2 hyperlinks to related resources for post-session self-directed learning. Resources are quite varied, ranging from proposed scavenger hunts for more materials on the topic, to related laws, to free-demo of web-based-training adaptive technology that changes the information provided and activities catered to the learner’s level of responses. Learner feedback about the session is requested in Chat at the end, in annotation boxes (one “take away” you learned today that you plan to implement or investigate), end-of-session survey, and emailed request for any additional feedback.

https://www.adobe.com/products/adobeconnect.html