I haven't read anything about the on line conference- how was it? DHelton's youtube video (posted in one of the threads) looked great.

Pat, I think it was a good investment for anyone who attended. Phillip Box provided a very good presentation and discussion opportunity on the topic of tool making and maintenance. This was timely for me as it complimented a Jim Keith DVD I had just received on similar topics.

Steve Krause shared a presentation on "The Effects of Conformation on Soundness and Performance" that is nearly textbook quality in content. Steve indicated he wants to provide dialog material for that same content and offer the product for sale in the future. He was well prepared and provided information that should be a normal part of any farrier's everyday shoeing.

Dan Helton clearly invested a lot of time and energy creating video demonstrations of forging techniques. I've been impressed with Chris Gregory's DVD series covering AFA certification shoe building. Dan's barshoe demonstration matched the quality and content of Chris's barshoe DVD and provided even more detail about successfully creating the weld. His other videos were just as detailed and valuable.

Ray Steele hosted a round table discussion on business management. Good questions and thoughts about identifying material costs and their management.

Dusty Franklin provided a detailed walk-through of the AFA certification scoring sheets for the CF, CTF and CJF levels, talking about the details that examiners expect and look for in each aspect of the test. It provided me with a better idea of what to expect when standing for the exams and cleared up some of the questions I had about the process.

The session ended with a two hour round table hosted by Baron for the attendees and the presenters. It gave everyone a chance to ask questions about things they may not have covered during specific presentations.

It's certainly a different format for learning. The paltalk technology used to manage the conference isn't perfect so a bit of patience was required at times. This is an area that I'm sure Baron will continue to work on.

The greatest value was in having the opportunity to see these presentations and discuss their content from the comfort of ones own home. It's a cost effective way to gather clinicians and teachers from around the country and share educational content. It's a lot like reading a textbook or watching a training video plus the added value of being able to pause and ask specific questions about the content.

Dan Helton's approach was unique in the way he broke up his video presentations into very specific, short details. This allowed for good discussion between each phase of the task he wanted to demonstrate. It was certainly clinician level quality. Watching it made me realize that a learning farrier could do the same thing in reverse. If one is having difficulty with a single aspect of forging or shoeing, a video could be made of the problem areas then shared with a teacher/clinician for feedback on how to resolve some of those problems.

I also think that this kind of conference is a good experience for the presenters. It forces them to examine the way they present information and how to engage a remote audience. It is also is a good representation of the role that technology can play in the teaching process.

That's my take on the conference. It's a worthwhile investment and provides added value to the co-op membership at the F&HRC.

Cheers,
Mark

Well, I missed it. My wife had the week off and we spent it doing home improvements, mainly scraping popcorn ceilings and retexturing. So, my question is, when do we get the DVD's? Thanks Baron.

I just finished the first step of the process, and will start editing them after Thanksgiving. With a little luck I'm hoping to have them in the mail in a few weeks. Except for one glitch during Dan's presentation, the new recording software worked well. I managed to recreate that part of his presentation, sans his commentary. Luckily almost all of that portion consisted of the playing of the videos. I'm going to jigger it a bit next year to improve the recording frame rate, and therefore the playback quality of the videos. Other than that, I'm happy with how it went from a technical standpoint.

Baron Tayler

....... fuzz bucket.... I thought it was at the end of the month where is the head exploding icon when you need it??

I'm just thankful that as a member of the FHRC, I know I will get a copy. Was a show farrier for the entrire weekend so missed it. I appreciate all Baron does for us.