I’ve just been watching “Staff Infection”, a webinar put on by Leadership Network. From time to time, Leadership Network and others offer free webinars to help train or pass on information to people so they can be more effective leaders and servants to others in ministry. Sometimes these webinars last 4 or more hours, without a break, except for a 5 minute infomercial of something they are promoting.

Bethany Seminary has also joined on this bandwagon by broadcasting different Church of the Brethren events. For a listing of their offerings, click here.

Are you a fan of these kinds of learning experiences? On the one hand, they are very convenient! You just need to turn-on your computer and watch/listen. You might even multi-task and do some work at the same time. On the other hand, I can get very distracted by things that need to get done that it’s hard to really pay attention and listen. I also miss the community of learning with others, whether it be commenting to each other or even seeing the non-verbals of agreement, disagreement, or confusion to what the speaker just said.

I would find these events more enjoyable, it they were shorter — say no longer than two hours. Longer than that, I think I would prefer traveling or getting together with others to watch.

What’s your experience? Do you participate in these kinds of learning experiences? What are you likes or dislikes?

Jeff