What’s one feature that exists in a virtual classrooms and virtual meetings but not in face-to-face settings? The chat box! The chat feature allows participants and facilitators to communicate throughout a session. When used effectively, chat can enhance your session in many ways. Here are six tips to keep in mind to maximize the chat feature in the virtual classroom:

1. Work with a producer

It’s difficult to lead a session and follow an active chat box. So, a good work around is to partner with producer and assign him/her the role of managing the chat messages. Alternatively, work with a co-facilitator and take turns speaking and monitoring chat.

2. Say it and type it for maximum clarity

Type any verbally posed questions in the chat area to ensure that participants understand your intention. For example, the facilitator poses the question while the producer simultaneously types the question into the chat area. Be clear about how you want participants to respond to any question that you pose —via chat or verbally.

3. Tell participants at the beginning of the session that the facilitation team is monitoring the chat area.

If you tell your audience to use the chat, you give them permission to type. A failure to encourage the use of chat as you start your session will leave people wondering if they should use it or not. Maybe a brave soul will get the ball rolling, but don’t leave it to chance!

4. Be deliberate with responses

Use the @mention technique, commonly used in social media, to signal who is the intended recipient.

5. Create a text file with key messages and links in advance

It’s easy to get distracted in a virtual meeting so using chat to reinforce key messages is a way to bring a person’s focus back to the screen. You can also use chat to share links to resources that you want people to check out.

6. Let participants answer each other’s questions 

Encouraging this behavior helps to build a sense of community and trust among participants.

7. Weave chat comments and questions into your verbal discussion

When a participant asks a good question or adds an interesting comment via chat, mention it verbally and name the person to help personalize the discussion.

And finally, in case you are a facilitation team of one, your best option is to pause periodically to review the comments posted in the chat area and respond verbally. You can do this by building in small breaks in your content to review the chat box or pause and review the chat while participants are working on an exercise.

The chat feature is probably the easiest and most commonly used feature in a virtual classroom. So make the most of it by using it early and often in your next virtual meeting or virtual learning event.

The need to move traditional classroom training to a live online format has never been greater. Learning how to design, deliver, and facilitate truly interactive and engaging virtual classroom training is just like learning any other new skill: it takes practice. If you are an experienced in-person trainer, think about how you learned your craft and honed it over time and how you can replicate that experience for the virtual classroom. Here are four steps to accelerate the dividends of your practice.

STEP 1: PARTICIPATE IN TUTORIALS AND GATHER INFORMATION

Goal: Learn About Available Features

Almost every virtual classroom vendor offers free online tutorials. Take advantage of this resource and participate in live sessions or watch a video recording of demonstration of the features of the tool. While you’re on the vendor’s website, download tip sheets or reference guides for later use. Reviewing these documents is part of the learning process. Finally, contact your organization’s IT or training department and investigate the tools and training materials that have been developed. Once you’ve gathered this information, note your learning on the features of your virtual classroom tool, then organize and store your notes for easy access later.

STEP 2: GET HANDS-ON EXPERIENCE

Goal: Learn How to Use the Features

Hands-on experience is the best way to learn any new technology. For example, when you learned how to drive a car, you probably spent some time in a classroom studying and reading about how to drive a car and learning the rules of the road. However, it was not until you started driving that you truly began acquiring driving skills. When you are ready for a test run of a virtual classroom tool, position two computers (or have a friend join you in a virtual session) side by side and log in as the instructor on one computer and as the participant on the other. As you test the tool’s features on one computer, notice how your actions as an instructor are displayed to the participant. Being able to experience these two perspectives simultaneously translates into quicker mastery of the tool and a better understanding of how to use the tool to enhance the virtual learning experience of learners.

STEP 3: EXPERIENCE THE VIRTUAL CLASSROOM AS A LEARNER

Goal: Reflect on Your Experience as a Virtual Classroom Learner

Experiencing virtual classroom training as a participant can help you quickly gather ideas on do’s and don’ts. Since up for an online course, or simply join a free webinar offered by a professional associations or vendors. Nowadays there are plenty of free webinars on how to covert classroom training to live online training! Although a webinar is more of a presentation and not typically designed as interactive training, the experience of participating in several virtual sessions is still worth your time, especially if you’ve had little virtual learning experience. Use a Virtual Classroom Observation Template to capture your reflections on the virtual classes and webinars that you attend.

STEP 4: HOLD A LOW-STAKES VIRTUAL CLASSROOM SESSION

Goal: Begin Designing and Facilitating for Virtual Audiences

Now that you’ve seen the “participant” side of the virtual classroom, it’s time to experience the “presenter,” or “facilitator,” side of a session. Schedule a low-stakes meeting with coworkers and prepare as if it were a high stakes session. Think creatively about your meeting and use all the appropriate features of your virtual classroom tool. For example, if the purpose of the meeting is to plan an upcoming workshop, create a poll and have participants vote on their preferred date. Or, use the whiteboard feature to assign tasks in real time to the virtual participants as you agree on roles and responsibilities for the workshop. Create a few well-designed and appealing support slides for the meeting, such as an agenda or topics with questions you want to address.

Next, focus on facilitation techniques in a virtual setting. As you facilitate the session, consider how your audience interactions are different without access to familiar body language cues that we all use to get our message and meaning across to learners.  At the end of your low-stakes virtual session, make notes about what went smoothly and where you see room for improvement.

In closing, the goal of becoming comfortable with a virtual classroom tool is to enable you to focus on your content when delivering training rather than on the technology. Following these four steps will put you on the right path to develop engaging and interactive sessions, and ultimately, to enhance the learning experience of your learners.

Foodies and chefs will recognize the French phrase, mise en place  (pronounced MEEZ ahn plahs), which translates to “put in  place.”  In the world of cooking it means having all your ingredients prepared and ready to go before you start cooking.  It’s tempting to jump right in and turn on the stove as soon as your first few ingredients are ready to go.  But great chefs know that it pays to prepare everything in advance to prevent problems and avoid chaos in the kitchen when it’s time to put meals together.

If you facilitate in the virtual classroom you know that there are factors that can derail session, some of which are out of the facilitator’s control, but others that a facilitator can mitigate.  One key to successful training in the virtual classroom is meticulous planning and preparation, just like the mise en place technique.

Consider these ten things to do before you say “welcome” to your virtual audience and start your session:

1.  View your slides in your virtual classroom tool.  Confirm that all images and text display properly and see if slide transitions work.

2. Rehearse your session with a mock audience.  Ask them for feedback on your facilitation technique, timing and level of interactivity.

3. Record yourself in the virtual classroom.  Listen to your voice.  Is it engaging or monotonous?  Did you vary your pace of speech?

4. Prepare the materials that you will send to participants post-meeting. If you plan to send an online evaluation, prepare it in advance.  Or if you plan to send follow up materials, prepare an email in draft form so you can send it right away, while the course material is fresh in everyone’s mind.

5. Send instructions to participants on how to test their computer.  Doing this in advance gives participants time to install plug-ins, deal with firewall issues or other access issues.

6. Remind participants about the session time, day and how to access the virtual classroom.  I typically send this reminder three times:  the day the person enrolls, the day before the session and a few hours before the session begins.

7. Develop plan B.  Think of everything that could go wrong and plan accordingly.  Have a back up computer, back up headset or phone, screen shots of any applications or websites you plan to show.  My building has bi-annual fire drills, so I’ll even go so far as to check with security to see if a fire drill is planned so I can prepare for that potential disruption.

8. Create a list of contact names for technical support.  When you need technical assistance, speed is key.  If you have contact names ready at your fingertips, you will be one step closer to resolving the problem.

9. Print a list of participants.  The list should contain name, photo (if available), title, location or whatever information is important to help you remember who is who.

10.Eliminate distractions.  Close your door and put a sign on it, turn your mobile device to vibrate and turn off instant messaging tools that you will not use during your session.

Follow these ten preparation steps to ensure your next virtual classroom training is a satisfying feast for you and your audience!

Over the last two months I had the opportunity to work with ASTD to produce four large scale webinars that were part of the TechKnowledge 2011 Virtual Conference.  Each webinar featured a presenter who had presented a session at the actual conference, and then delivered a similar session via WebEx to a virtual audience.  Since speakers were selected based on their popularity and appeal to virtual learners, enrollment in the webinars was impressive, ranging from 500-1,000.  The webinars were interactive and used one-way audio: the audience listened through a phone line and typed questions into chat.

The presenter tasks were:

Presenter: Subject matter expert

• Addressed the audience verbally by presenting his/her topic
• Advanced slides
• Gave verbal answers to questions posted in chat (with the help of the webinar moderator)
• Not active in chat

The technique we used to produce these large scale events was a two-person production team.  The purpose of the production team was to support the presenters and the audience during the live event.  The roles were divided like this:

Technical Producer (Production Team Member #1):  Responsible for managing the webinar technology

• Opened and closed meeting room
• Muted and unmuted phone lines
• Provided guidance via chat to those experiencing technical difficulties
• Passed ‘control’ of meeting room from speaker to speaker
• Recorded session for later posting
• Typed comments in chat to answer logistical questions (ex: “slides will be mailed to you along with the recording”, or “dial xxx for audio”)

Webinar Moderator (Production Team Member #2): Responsible for moderating the event

•  Monitored questions that participants posted in chat, looking for common themes and interesting questions
• At designated times, verbalized questions to speaker, serving as the ‘voice’ of the audience
• Typed comments in chat to supplement speaker’s presentation such as names of books, authors or other resources

My role was the webinar moderator.  I’ve never moderated such a large event, and I have to admit, I didn’t realize it would be such an intense experience.  With such a large audience, the sheer volume of questions was amazing.  I kept a Word document open and pasted interesting questions from the chat box into categories that corresponded to the speaker’s presentation.  As I was doing this, I also listened to see if the speaker answered any of the chat questions in the course of his or her presentation.  Some speakers glanced at the chat area and responded to random questions or comments.  Either way, if the speaker had already addressed the question, I removed it from my list.  Then, when we paused for questions, I checked my Word document and verbalized questions for the speaker to answer.

I also listened carefully to the speaker to see if he or she mentioned any resources.  If the speaker mentioned a good book, research article or website, I typed into chat is case participants didn’t hear clearly.

If you plan to produce a large scale webinar where you plan to interact with your audience, I highly recommend a two-person production team.  Both of us worked at break-neck speed for the duration of each webinar and neither of us could have done it alone.  Finally, if you will be the technical producer or webinar moderator for a large webinar, do as much preparation as you can to prepare for the event (testing equipment, creating back up plans, and reviewing speaker materials) and get ready for an exhilarating experience.