FAQS about the webinar series adapted from interview transcript by Emily Cabrera of Dr. Dan Suiter, UGA Extension Entomologist.
What is “Getting the Best of Pests,” or GTBOP?
“GTBOP is a webinar series, produced by the Center for Urban Agriculture, for ANR Agents to help with their program planning and their own professional development. The Center has done all the work by scheduling the webinars for the entire year, arranging for speakers, and obtaining Commercial and Private pesticide applicator credit from the Georgia Department of Agriculture. Bodie Pennisi and Shimat Joseph have done an outstanding job of getting the best speakers in the country for the GTBOP series. At any rate, all an Agent needs to do is register for the webinar for free, when they get the announcement from the Center, invite local license holders to their office for the webinar viewing, and collect and keep any and all fees they charge at the door.”
How can this help county agents?
“The webinars are 2-hour programs, held every other month, that are ready to go. No work needs to be done on the Agent’s end. All the Agent needs to do is advertise the webinar date and time and credit available to their local list of Commercial and Private applicators. Even if Agents don’t host attendees, they should at least take advantage of the quality of the speakers and watch the webinar themselves for their own professional development.”
How does this help the “green” people in each county?
“Because the webinars are geared towards the Green industry, each webinar carries 2 Commercial Pesticide Applicator credits in categories catering to the Green industry – including Private. But that’s not all – there are many other categories where credit is available. Some of these categories are hard to get credit in, so Applicators can obtain those hard-to-get hours by attending. They just need to be informed about the program and the credit available.”
Can agents team up to host webinars?
“We encourage this. Multiple counties could contact licensees in their counties and co-host a viewing, at maybe one location, by Commercial and Private applicators. We also encourage Agents to charge for attendance, and whatever money is collected stays with the county. All of it. The Agents can also count the attendee numbers as face-to-face contacts for GA Counts.”
How can agents build their own programs to meet their county’s needs?
“Each webinar provides a wide range of credit in numerous categories, so webinars can be attractive to anyone holding a Commercial or Private Applicator’s license in Georgia.”
How would an agent run a webinar?
“First, make sure you’re getting the Center’s webinar announcements. If you’re not getting them, contact us and we’ll make sure we add you to our listserv. You may also be getting the announcement from your PDC. The Center sends the announcement 6 and 1 weeks prior to the webinar date. When you get the 6-week announcement, this is your trigger to contact and advertise the webinar and credit to your list of Commercial and Private applicators in your county. Second, the Agent must register for the webinar so that they get their individualized Zoom link. The announcement that comes from the Center provides details on how Agents register and bypass payment. Save the Zoom link, and on the day of the event just click the link like any other Zoom presentation and project the webinar on a screen for people to see. Use computer speakers so everyone can hear. Third, as attendees arrive to your viewing location have them sign the sign-in sheet provided at gtbop.com, collect and keep any fee… and at the end of the webinar send to sign in sheet to gtbop@uga.edu or bhorne@uga.edu. We add a course number to the sign in sheet and send it off to the Department of Ag for credit posting on Kelly Solutions. If you need help with any of this contact us here in the Center and we’ll walk you through the process, but it’s really simple.”
What space or equipment are needed to run a webinar?
“A computer, projector, enough seats for everyone, and a sign-in sheet that attendees sign as they check-in. When the webinar is over the ANR Agent sends the sign-in sheet to us here at the Center, we add some info to it and send it off to the Department of Ag where the CEUs are posted to the licensee’s account on Kelly Solutions.”
How does GTBOP utilize archives?
“We record the live webinars and post the recordings to gtbop.com. There are currently around 50 archives posted… We submit each one-hour talk, live webinars are two hours long, so we break them into two talks, to the Department of Ag and receive one hour of Commercial and Private Applicator credit for each recording. Agents can use these archives any way they want. For instance, should a licensee contact the county office and need a couple hours of credit in a particular category, the Agent can sit the licensee down… at the county office, have them watch one or more archives, sign a sign-in sheet… collect a fee if they choose to charge, and the Agent then sends the sign-in sheet to the Center where we put a course number on the sheet and send it to the GDA for credit posting on Kelly Solutions. There are other ways to use the archives. The Agent can use the archives to supplement one of their own live programs or use multiple archives to develop a multi-hour CEU-granting program where they don’t have to acquire speakers or submit classes to the GDA – all this is already done. Just go to gtbop.com and choose from any of the 50 archives. Richie Braman has made the archives sortable by category credit. When you go to gtbop.com, click on Archives, scroll down, and on the right is a drop-down menu labeled ‘Category Credit’. Click the dropdown and go to the category you have interest in and up will pop all the archives that provide one hour of credit for that category. It’s really useful.
The archives can be used by anyone in any way they choose. Courses being taught by anyone can use the recordings as ‘guest lectures’, or under an emergency, for instance, a teacher can instruct students to watch one or more of the archives. Speakers are leaders in their field and are mostly Ph.D. researchers and Extension professionals at land grant universities throughout the U.S. The quality of the speakers is top notch and worthy of being used as course content.”
To register for GTBOP emails, access the archives, or learn more about hosting a webinar in your county, visit gtbop.com.