What’s an Online Workshop? Is it a Webinar?

It’s an interactive Webinar. The WebEx technology facilitates online learning without the distasteful feeling that you are viewing a presentation given by a disembodied voice. Whenever feasible and helpful -and as often as possible - Conscious Woman presenters will utilize polling, breakout sessions, audio and verbal interaction with participants, annotation, video, webcam and more, in order to make their workshop as interactive as possible in this medium. WebEx is the industry standard, meaning that no other online learning software has as much functionality. In the end, you’ll find that you and the presenter may get to know each other better than you would in a full lecture hall!

Many of the programs will be supplemented with restricted discussion forums, where participants can continue to learn and grow together. For example, participants in Gloria Lemay’s Advanced Doula Training series will have their own forum, where they can discuss assignments/projects that Gloria may present at the end of each session, personal experiences, and other relevant topics.

I Don’t Have a Webcam, Can I Still Participate?

You don’t need a webcam for the workshops. ALL YOU NEED IS HIGH-SPEED INTERNET ACCESS AND A TELEPHONE. Actually webcams will be used by very few of the presenters, and just to say hello and goodbye, if at all. It is not best practice to deliver a lecture with your face on the screen (even if you’re as good-looking as our presenters are). In addition, that kind of conferencing technology still has a slight delay, which can be very distracting. Finally, Mac users can’t use webcams on WebEx — yet.

How Many People Can Attend Each Workshop?

Most online workshops will be limited to 48 participants, and some fewer. If we were to allow more people to attend, this would restrict the amount of interactivity that can be incorporated into the presentation.

What Continuing Education Units will be available?

Conscious Woman is in the process of applying for Continuing Education credits and endeavors to secure certified provider status (or equivalent) from professional associations requiring continuing education to maintain licensure - time and cost permitting.

At the present time, in addition to certification for doulas, we are preparing to offer CEUs for Lactation Consultants, Midwives (CPMs and CNMs) and Mental Health Care Providers (psychologists and social workers). We are also reviewing the procedures for other professionals, such as nurses, chiropractors, M.D.s, lawyers, and others - many of which involve filing individual applications for every state. This is why it is so important that you join our mailing list and provide your profession and state of residence - it is how we will determine the most prudent applications to complete and which are not worth the effort. And remember, personal requests are always welcome!

Due to the volume of programs and wide interest, we may not be able to accommodate everyone, and also may not have final approval at the launch date. If and when this occurs, rest assured that we will maintain a record of your attendance and will send you a certificate when the CEU process is complete.

Because of my occupation (as a birth attendant), I have a hard time meeting time schedules. If I was to sign up and then miss a class - what is the procedure?

We anticipated this issue arising, so in the company’s terms and conditions, we inserted the following:

Birthing Professionals and Expecting Parents. Birthing professionals and expecting parents: You will be granted a “free reschedule” pass if you miss a session due to a birth. It will be your responsibility to email us at info@consciouswoman.org if this was the reason for your absence. Your pass may be used for another program at an equal or lesser price or for temporary access to a previously recorded program.

I just received my registration confirmation. Do I log in and call in?

You will first log into the video portion of the program. Just follow the link (you will be sent a reminder a day or two before the program as well with the same information). Enter your name and email when prompted to do so. Let WebEx do the downloads (very minor, and will only take a few minutes). Then you will be in “the room”. After you have connected to the video portion, a screen will pop up with a list of global toll-free numbers for you to choose from. A pleasant voice will ask you to input your session number (it will be on your screen) and your attendee ID# (that will also be on your screen). Then you will be connected to the conference!

It’s really quite simple if you just follow the instructions one at a time. Make sure that you use Internet Explorer (IE) (Firefox will also work) if you have a PC, and Safari if you use a Mac (those browsers work best with WebEx). The AOL browser will not work, so don’t even try going through AOL (suggestion: just cut and paste the link into your IE browser).

Take down the WebEx tech support number just in case you have a problem (you probably won’t). Please begin the sign-on process 15 minutes early your first time. After that, your connection will be automatic.

The System Requirements page on the website has detailed instructions on what to do in the very rare event that the link provided doesn’t work on your computer. Finally, for those truly wary of the technology, WebEx tech support is there 24/7 and is immediately available (no wait time if you are logging into a live session).

Thank you all for your spirit of technological adventure. You’re going to love this!

What time will the conference start for me?

In the interests of time and space, we have listed only US Pacific and Eastern time in our registration information. Our web designers are working on finding a good international internet calendaring system. Until they find a suitable one, here is a link to a time zone converter: http://www.timezoneconverter.com/cgi-bin/tzc.tzc

When you register for a class, you may see the time listed in Mountain Time (I set up the sessions here in Boulder, Colorado). Mountain time is one hour ahead of Pacific, and two hours behind Eastern. If you reside outside the US, please check the time zones converter, as we are never certain which countries/states change their clocks and which do not. We are never sure what time it is in Arizona!