...one of the biggest barriers in trying to do web meetings is the technology itself, but before going on to that, some of the important questions you'd need to answer include:
- What additional level of interactivity are you seeking?
- What additional value would multimedia presentation add to your conferences?
- How much (additional) time and money are you prepared to devote to preparing for a more interactive and engaging presentation?
At a minimum, you can use WebEx, et.al. (I'm partial to Breeze, but we're happy to use whatever LegalMeetings offers) as a supplement to the phone call so that people who want additional interactivity can take advantage of it while those who can't or don't want to needn't. The web conference can be an excellent way to cue questions from the audience or engage the audience with each other (depending on your goals for interactivity).
In addition to interactivity during the meeting, you can also explore interactivity afterwards, for example through asynchronous message boards for a day or week after the meeting. In real space the analogy would be to the chatter that happens after a lecture ends among attendees; whether this takes off with your group depends on the nature of your audience and the topic.
legalaideducation has been working on creative engaging and interactive learning experiences for almost three years now, so we'd be happy to help you or anyone else think through these questions.
