Welcome to the Senior Corps Virtual Conference.
This conference gave participants a rare opportunity to interact with their peers
from across the country and attend sessions with valuable information for their programs.
This video will show you what it was like to be there on the live days when speakers, staff,
and peers were just a click away.
The virtual conference experience begins by visiting this landing page
where you can register and log in to the conference.
By clicking "Enter the Virtual Conference" we enter the main hall.
The entire conference experience from the networking lounge
to the exhibit hall can be accessed from this screen.
Welcome to Senior Corps 2.0.
Dr. Erwin Tan, Director of Senior Corps,
provides a welcome message and a few instructions.
First, let me introduce myself to you and my peers.
The profile tab allows me to update my personal information and add a picture.
We can also take a look at the Attendee Guide which gives us all the information we need
to make the most out of our virtual conference experience.
Let's see who is online with us.
On the bottom of the screen we can always see who is virtually joining us in this location
and throughout the virtual conference environment.
I can also search for attendees.
Let's see if my friend Jessica is online.
She is! Let's send her a message.
You can send private messages to anyone in the conference, allowing you to carry
on conversations with old friends and people you just met.
On this page I can also see the agenda for the day.
When a webcast event is live or an exhibit booth is manned, there is also a green, "Now Live!"
next to it which will display where activity is happening in the conference.
It looks like there is a session happening right now.
Let's check it out!
The Main Conference Hall is one of four conference halls
at the Senior Corps Virtual Conference.
The other three house specific content for the RSVP, Foster Grandparents,
and Senior Companions tracks at the conference.
The halls showcase an ordered list of the sessions planned
in those spaces on live conference days.
On-demand sessions are either pre-recorded content
or a live session that has already happened.
Within a couple hours after each live session, a recording of that session,
in addition to a downloadable podcast, is made available to participants.
With on-demand content we can choose to play or re-play conference material anytime we want.
Each session has closed captioning and a content tab.
Here we can go to the forums page to ask any questions we may have.
During the conference, presenters and forum moderators were on hand
to answer questions in the forum and chat.
Back on the main page I can also sign-up for a future live session,
which adds that session automatically to my personal conference agenda.
I can also see which sessions are currently live.
Let's take a look at the session going on right now.
During most live sessions, users can submit questions
to presenters using the green Q&A button.
Presenters can respond to questions either verbally during their presentation
or direct message users.
The live sessions also have a content area identical to the on-demand sessions.
Here I can find materials for this session such as slides, fact sheets, and more.
Presenters could also poll participants, making these sessions more interactive.
They can push out live results of those polls to all viewers.
Presenters also had the option of prompting a new window to open on all viewers' screens,
drawing users to a new website or another space within the virtual environment.
It looks like my question has been answered via direct message.
Let's take a look.
Let's take a look at the library resources.
The Senior Corps Virtual Conference is extremely rich with content
and corresponding documents and media.
All content presented throughout the conference including session resources
and booth materials can also be found in the library, a single space to access
and search tagged, categorized, information within the virtual environment.
Here I can find the document I was directed to by the presenter and browse to find documents
and media that might be helpful for my Senior Corps program.
The documents are arranged by booth or session.
Once I find the resource I can view an abstract, the entire document,
or send it to my event bag where I can download it later.
My event bag can be found at the top of my screen and acts as my personal folder
of all the resources I find useful.
Here you can find the document I just added to my event bag as well as important documents
which have been pre-populated in the bag.
At the end of the conference I can download a zip file which allows me to download all
of the items in my bag in a single click.
The Senior Corps Virtual Conference has exhibit halls to maximize the impact
of learning tools available to conference participants.
The first exhibit hall serves as more of a traditional, trade show-type role,
allowing 10 CNCS organizations and outside partners
to organize helpful information into virtual booths.
Exhibit Booths includes CNCS Disaster Services, AmeriCorps VISTA, The Corporation for National
and Community Service, Veterans and Military Families, the Administration
for Community Living, Volunteer Match, and more.
By clicking on the booth logo I can enter the booth.
In each booth there are videos, photos, and a personalized booth representative
to greet participants and personalize the booth.
In addition there are also two kiosks where I can go for further information.
The first is the information kiosk.
This has more information about the organization as well as tools, resources,
videos which explain the organization and provide resources to Senior Corps programs.
As we look at the information and conversations happening in individual booths,
a booth representative can initiate a one-on-one chat with individual participants.
By accepting the invitation I can talk directly to whoever is manning the booth.
There is also the communication kiosk.
Here I can send a message directly to a booth representative, engage in general booth chat,
participate in forums and visit the organization's Facebook and Twitter pages.
The communications kiosk will also indicate when a representative is available to chat.
In the booth chat I can talk with my friend Jessica,
the booth rep, and anyone else in the booth.
In addition to this exhibit hall there are also breakout sessions where attendees can convene
with members of their program to further discuss what they learned in the courses.
A CNCS representative led these discussions using the public booth chat.
More information about performance measures is available
in the information kiosks in these booths.
There is also great music in each breakout session booths aligning
with the geographical region represented.
Throughout the conference there were announcements providing tips
and directing people to different parts of the conference.
Let's check out what's happening in the networking lounge.
Participants of in-person conferences use lounges and other places outside
of the main conference rooms for relaxing and networking
when planned or impromptu breaks happen.
Here virtual participants can relax,
network freely with colleagues, and enjoy additional activities.
Participants can enter the networking lounge at any point during the conference,
and are free to browse the many activities and conversations included there.
Here you can access the public lounge chat, a place for people to openly converse
about their conference experiences, discuss their programs and meet
in advance of upcoming live events.
Participants use this chat feature to ask questions about session timing,
find colleagues who are from their same geographical area, and share best practices.
There is also a list of forums that were collected from most sessions and organized
in one space within the networking lounge.
Participants could browse through relevant forums, add to them, and ask questions.
In addition to communications features, there are also activity buttons available
on the top of the Networking Lounge page.
Participants could browse through as they had extra time or needed a break.
There is a trivia button, where visitors to fill out their answers
to various Senior Corps trivia questions.
Those who answered all questions correctly were entered into a drawing for Senior Corps gear.
In order to make participants feel like they were part of the fabric
of the Virtual Conference event, the photo button allowed participants to send a photo
of their conference workspace directly to a Virtual Conference email account.
There is a 7-minute clip of Desktop Yoga instruction with captioning.
An instructor takes participants through how to stretch properly and relax while at their desks.
The Flash Mob button features a video of a flash mob produced by Senior Corps volunteers
in Ogden, Utah for Senior Corps Week 2011.
Finally, following the live closing session, participants received a pop up window
that took them straight to the networking lounge for a "chat flash mob."
By typing in one word reactions in the conference public chat, a word cloud was created
in the shape of a star that depicted the most used words.
Some of the top words used were: Informative, Great, and Helpful.
Even after live sessions concluded, participants lingered to chat
in the networking lounge and find new connections.
I think I'm going to stick around here too and chat with the new connections I've made
at the Senior Corps Virtual Conference.
Thank you for joining me on this tour and experiencing the future of Senior Corps with me.