Looking for cost effective and agile ways to train staff?

Then virtual classroom (VC) may be the answer you are looking for (other terms for VC include webinar and web conferencing).

At first, virtual classroom can seem a little daunting to design and facilitate. A virtual classroom train-the-trainer workshop is a great way to build the skills and confidence you need to be successful. Visit Connect Thinking for more information.

Meanwhile, why not review these free resources from Connect Thinking and our affiliates.

Webinar design and facilitation techniques for learning, sharing and collaboration

These videos are an edited recording from a live webinar presentation sponsored by Redback Conferencing. Although the participant numbers were too large for a lot of participation, the recording will give you a sense of the role of web moderator (played by Sara) and facilitator (me).

10 Things that Make E-Learning Work

These videos help to understand the webinar process from ‘go to wo’. A collaboration with Colleen Kavanagh. This presentation also appeared in article format in HC Magazine, Sept 2011, pp34-36.

All E-Learning Academy videos are available on YouTube and iTunes.

If you have a virtual classroom question or experience you would like to share, please feel free to leave a comment on this blog post. Thank you.

I  have recently had a number of recent enquiries about webinar (virtual classroom) design and facilitation training for learning professionals recently. That’s great to see, as I think webinars are largely under-utilised in organisational learning.

Their value is obvious (enables social learning, cost-effective, supportive of geographically dispersed learners, supportive of generative learning activities). However, participative webinars do require specialist skills in learning design and facilitation.

Webinar design and facilitation resources from Connect Thinking

10 Things That Make E-Learning (Webinars) Work (YouTube video)

Part 1: Click here

Part 2: Click here

Article in HR Magazine 9/11, pp34-36: The Virtual Classroom: 10 tips to make e-learning work: Click here

I am guest speaker at a free webinar on Participative Webinars, scheduled for February 7, supported by Redback Webconferencing: Click here

Webinar design and facilitation training from Connect Thinking

E-Learning Academy members have access to the course and accompanying resources Webinar Instructional Design and Facilitation: Demo course click here

I also facilitate a 1 day workshop on webinar design and facilitation. I conduct these in the classroom, so that participants can see both facilitator view and learner view during the training. Webinar workshops are tailored to participant specific needs and generally include the following topics:

• Prepared webinar demonstration
• Learning in a virtual classroom
• Designing for the virtual classroom
• Facilitating and managing a virtual classroom
• Lunch  Design – your turn
• Running a session – your turn
• Review of workshop and take home points
• Net steps for your organisation

I hope the resources are helpful to you. If you would like further information on Academy membership or webinar workshops, please contact me 02 8824 3340 or use the contact form.

Question from a client:

I  am working with Subject Matter Experts to manage the development of an e-learning course. What can I do to help the SMEs understand what is required for a quality e-learning outcome?

There are a couple of overarching things we need to achieve when working with SMEs:

• Help SMEs become discerning of what quality is. We can do this by exposing them to quality e-learning examples and critiquing these as a group (see checklist below).
• Help SMEs realise that their content as they know it (copious pages of text) cannot all be included into an e-learn. E-learning requires instructional design that will help enable learners to understand and digest the content in a meaningful and time efficient way. Typically, content from the SME needs to be culled and then carefully chunked and sequenced for includion into the e-learn. Learners can be educated on how to access and use the ‘detail’ (such as a policy, guidelines etc) as and when they need it.

To help critique the quality of an e-learning course, here is a small checklist:

Checklist of e-learning quality

1. Content needs to be succinct and concise, so that it is easy to digest and interesting. To get a concept of what I mean here, have a look at Cathy Moore’s excellent Slideshare Dump The Drone 

2. Lots of meaningful activity. There should be learning activities throughout the course to help learners build confidence in their understanding of the important concepts. Cathy Moore talks about leading with activity, and then introduce the content that reinforces the activity outcomes.

3. The visual design needs to appear organised. There must be consistent use of font, space, colour, graphics and multimedia. This puts the learner at ease and minimises cognitive overload.

4. Navigation must be consistent throughout the course and options kept to a minimum so as to not confuse the learner on what they need to do.
Tip: For Articulate users who add Engage templates amongst screens created in Presenter, please remove the Engage navigation at the top. Keep to one navigation at the bottom of the screen.

5. Graphics and multimedia are thoughtfully used to create real-life context about the topic at hand. Use graphics to reduce text burden, such as flowcharts.
TIP: Be prepared to spend 50% of your development time on sourcing and creating congruent, meaningful graphics.

6. Attention to detail. Make the learner feel as though the e-learn has been created with love by ensuring there are no typos, that text is properly aligned & consistently spaced, there is a consistent editorial style throughout etc.
TIP: Use plenty of testers to proof your e-learning course before going live.

There is, of course, a lot more to achieving quality e-learning. However, if you are able to at least have SMEs agree to ensure they achieve these six factors, then this will go a long way towards a quality outcome.

If you don’t have quality e-learning on-hand to critique with your SMEs, have a look at some e-learning provider websites for examples.

• Change management theory espouses ‘quick wins’ as a useful way to get staff onside to your new initiative.
• Organisational culture and change reminds us time and again that staff respond better to incremental change, and to having ownership or at least feedback opportunity to that which is happening to them.
• Design theorists talk about design as process of iteration and refinement.
• Entrepreneurs of the web talk about getting prototypes up and running early, to test user response before spending too much time and effort on an idea that represents only the developer’s perspective.

Each of these perspectives help to inform us that it is almost always useful to stage your e-learning, social media or Learning Management System (LMS) implementation.

Let’s take a few examples:

Example 1: Internal e-learning courseware development

If you are new to designing & authoring e-learning, it’s useful to build a course as best you can, and then have it critiqued by colleagues or an e-learning industry expert. Get feedback, make refinements and then launch.

If you happen to have launched your first attempts – that’s okay. Ensure you have a feedback loop that provides you with ongoing evaluation of your live course, and make changes when you acknowledge the feedback is useful and fair.

Example 2: External e-learning courseware development

When you are looking for an e-learning provider to develop your courses, it is useful to engage the vendor for one course, and see how the experience goes for you from both course quality and project management perspectives. Let the vendor know that, if the experience is positive for you, then there is likely to be more work.

Example 3: Learning Management System (LMS) implementation

If your organisation is disparate or your data, records and other learning administration is in different forms and places, then implementing a LMS can be a big job. Consider incremental implementation. Perhaps start with populating classroom events & working out the email workflows for this. Then tackle the e-learning courses (or vise versa).

Example 4: Participative virtual classroom (webinar) events

Training-orientated webinar platforms have functionality that can help you to facilitate generative learning through participation. Introduce your learners to one new webinar function or activity each event, to help them gain confidence in knowing how to use and express themselves in the platform e.g. begin with a poll and a whiteboard activity. Introduce text writing, highlighting, web safaris, breakout rooms etc over a series of events.

Example 5: Online forums

It take time for people to build confidence to leave their thoughts on an asynchronous forum to be viewed & critiqued by others. Start early forum discussions with simple questions and answers, and reward positive behaviour. Deep reflective posts will come with confidence, trust and with good questions and online support.

The bottom line:

There is NO constant in the practice of learning and development. Organisational IT infrastructure changes, software and hardware improve, visual design gets tired looking, content becomes redundant and, most importantly, our understanding of learning design and pedagogy evolves as we deepen our understanding of learning and technology. So, take the plunge as early as you can and be prepare to iterate and refine your learning design. And, be prepared to sustain and evolve your e-learning, LMS & social media strategies.

Oh, and when is a staged approach to implementation NOT a good idea?

I don’t know – I just don’t like using absolutes. Please feel free to comment.