Two years ago, instructional technology specialist Richard Sebastian set up an online discussion group for adult educators on a site called TappedIn (tappedin.org/tappedin). Quite a few ABE professionals signed up right away, but Sebastian soon learned that creating the group was not enough; the real challenge was getting members to contribute. The group languishes still, but Sebastian continues to believe the idea was sound.

That belief was corroborated at a recent summit held at Virginia Commonwealth University in Richmond, and sponsored by the Virginia Department of Education’s Office of Adult Education and Literacy and the Virginia Literacy Institute. This summit blended a traditional face-to-face event with a virtual one, using video streaming and a social media site called Ning.com. He believes this was the first event of its kind for adult education.

Sebastian says he used Ning as the main communication platform for virtual participants. Through Ning he not only streamed live video of the keynote presentations but also created discussion threads that allowed off-site participants to join in the discussions and contribute to the summit conversations.

The advantages of incorporating these types of tools are many.

"With technology we can archive the summit information," Sebastian says. "For instance, the keynote recordings are posted to Ning as well as to the Virginia Adult Learning Resource Center (VALRC) website. People can still watch the keynote presentations and read the discussion threads. Usually, you lose a lot of what happens at a conference but now that won’t happen.

"We also opened up the conversation to more people. Educators are experiencing budget cuts and many simply do not have the funds to travel. Using the Ning platform allowed them to participate virtually."

There are significant disadvantages, too, Sebastian warns.

"Since this was the first time we’ve done anything like this, there was some additional stress behind the scenes," he says. "It is demanding to moderate active chats and discussion threads and streaming video. It took a lot of juggling."

Sebastian offers this advice for anyone interesting in putting on such an event:

1. Start small: "We started out too ambitious," he admits. "We started planning a larger international conference, but for many reasons, that simply didn’t work out. In this case, smaller was better."
2. Check out all the costs and options: Ning is free but has limited features; it also charges a monthly fee to eliminate ads from the site.
3. Think about who has ownership of your information: "We assume Ning will preserve all our information," Sebastian says, "but they are a business so we can’t be sure."
4. Experiment!: "There are a lot of social media tools out there," he says. "We had a lot of people just watching and absorbing information but a significant number participated. There are now over 116 people signed up to be members of our Ning site. This is a group of people who can continue to serve as a resource for each other as well as for the field of adult education. There are a lot of interesting ideas that need to be shared.

"We are always talking about how hard it is for teachers to get training," says Sebastian. "This expands our options and the level of participation people can have. It broadens what we can do."

For more information, contact Richard Sebastian at valrc.org or phone him at 804.828.7537. To see the keynote addresses, position papers and photos from VALRC’s conference, go to newdigitalworld.ning.com.