• Virtual Training Design

    Optimizing the Use of Experts in the Virtual Classroom

    August 22, 2022 /

    The flexibility of a virtual classroom means that a speaker with specialized expertise is a click away – a far cry from the logistical challenges associated with in-person training. So, when you are designing a virtual session, think creatively about how you may want to incorporate external experts intentionally and aligned to the needs of a learning group.

    Whether the speaker with specialized expertise joins for a brief Q&A session, or stays for an entire class, s/he can bring an innovative viewpoint into a virtual classroom. Some of the benefits of including expert speakers include:

    • New perspective: A new voice and point of view can inspire learners to rethink an issue through a new and innovative lens. Experts bring their own insights into operations and can provide important tips and ideas on how to manage challenges.
    • Nuance: They can provide insight on the more nuanced and highly contextual aspects of a topic and address questions such as: What would happen if…; what would you do when …;
    • Variety: External speakers add richness and variety to a training team, especially when considering the preponderance of information, the speed of change, differences between industries/sectors, and so on.

    Selecting an Expert

    • Experience: Look for experts that have direct experience in the topics on the learning agenda.
    • Alignment: Be sure the expert has relevant work experience and not just an expert in a particular topic. “Street credentials” are important.

     Preparing the Expert

    • Share the participant list, agenda and summary of questions from participants with the expert (see below).
    • Explain the learners’ needs and expectations for the session.
    • Explain the roles of the facilitation team (who will moderate the live discussion, who will moderate chat, timekeeper, etc.)
    • Brief the expert on how best to tell their story to ensure they render complex subject matter in a way that matches the technical capacity of participants.
    • Invite the expert to join early to see the learning session “in action,” ideally when participants are reporting back on the results of breakout room activities or other group activity. This serves multiple purposes:
      • It allows the expert to get an insight on the learning level of a group and to adjust their commentary accordingly.
      • It provides incentives for the learning group to put their best foot forward knowing that an expert will be observing their work.
      • It allows the expert to focus more directly on the concerns and needs of the learning group by listening to their responses to their respective learning tasks.

    Preparing Participants

    • Include the experts’ bio and photos and session description on the agenda, indicating the value the expert brings to the discussion.
    • Solicit questions in advance to maximize time with the expert. Group and summarize the questions and send to the expert(s) prior to the session.

     Afterwards, remember to follow up to thank the expert(s) for joining the session and sharing their expertise. Note any comments from participants about their session that may have come later in the course or in the course evaluation.

    Follow these steps to delight your next virtual delivery with an expert speaker!

    Read More
  • Virtual Training Design

    How to Enhance Your Images in PowerPoint for a Web Conference

    January 24, 2011 /

    Last post I wrote about fundamental concepts regarding using PowerPoint slides in a web conference.  This post covers ideas to enhance images to make your images and slides look professional.  Note that these tips are written for PowerPoint 2007.

    1. Outline your images

    Once you’ve found the right images to represent the key concepts and ideas to include in your PowerPoint, you can give them a polished look by applying a “picture style.”  Simply click on the image and you will see the Picture Tools feature activate at the top of the screen.  Select one of the picture styles that you like.

    2. Remove the background from an image

    If your slide background color is not white, placing an image with a white background won’t look right.  But it’s easy to remove the image background to make it blend in with your slide.  Click on the image and the Picture Tools feature will activate.  Select Picture Tools > Recolor > Set Transparent Color.  Then click on the image background you wish to remove and it will disappear.

    3. Incorporate text onto images

    One way to make images more appealing and professional looking is to select an image that contains space to write text.  For example, to convey the idea of something brief, select an image of a person holding a blank card.  Then click Insert > Text Box and draw a text box on the image.  Write something such as “Use limited text” in the text box. You may need to resize and recolor the text to improve the visibility of the text.

    Read More
  • Virtual Training Design

    Creating Great Slides for Web Conferences

    January 13, 2011 /

    Whether you are facilitating a web conference for a sales event, virtual classroom training or a knowledge sharing event, you will need  PowerPoint slides to support your content. You don’t need to be an expert in PowerPoint to put together a good slide deck, but when developing your slides, keep these two concepts in mind:

    1. Use a Lot of Slides

    Using a minimal amount of slides in an in-person setting is a good practice, however the opposite is true in a web conference. Since participants cannot see the speaker, the slides provide a place for participants to focus and maintain their interest.  When converting content from a face-to-face setting to a web conference setting, I typically increase the number of slides between 30-50%.  More slides doesn’t mean more content – it means the same content (or less) spread out over more slides.  Try to only cover one key concept per slide.  When you rehearse your web conference ask someone to observe and see if the ideas and concepts you are describing are supported by the slides you are showing.  If you start to go off on a tangent either eliminate the tangent or create slides to support it. Slides for a web conference should also include:

    • Slides for transitions (starting a new section, doing a wrap up, etc.).
    • Slides with instructions (ground rules, instructions for exercises, instructions for next steps, etc.).

     

    2. Use a Lot of Images

    Aristotle said that ‘the soul never thinks without an image.’  Apply this thinking to your slides and see where you can support or replace text with images.  If you don’t have images readily available, you can search for pictures in PowerPoint by going to Insert > Clip Art. Type a keyword and click Go.  For the best search results, use this feature while you are connected to the Internet.  For more ideas on how to find good images check out Steal this Presentation.  Slides 23-32 cover images, however the entire slideshare is worth viewing.

    In addition to images of key concepts you should also include photos of:

    • The presenters
    • The participants
    • The materials (if you will refer to materials that you mailed to participants such as a workbook or job aid, display an image of the item when referring to it).

    These concepts are a starting point for developing slides for your web conference.  Next time, I’ll blog about advanced techniques for PowerPoint.

    Read More
  • Virtual Training Design

    How to Gather Participant Feedback in a Web Conference

    February 10, 2010 /

    Gathering evaluation feedback from participants in a web conference can be easily done through an online evaluation conducted at the conclusion of your training. The importance of soliciting feedback and making adjustments cannot be understated: since we cannot see our participants, their evaluation of the training is critical.

    Just as in a physical classroom, it’s important to leave few minutes at the end of your session to conduct an evaluation.Participants in a physical classroom generally tend to scoot out the door quickly when a session ends, and this holds true in a virtual classroom as well, so build in time for your evaluation.As the session concludes announce that you would like feedback from participants, then describe what you would like participants to do and approximately how long the evaluation will take.For example, “We would like to know what you thought about this session.Please take a few moments to complete an anonymous 10-question survey.It should only take you about 5 minutes and that’s how much time we have left before the conclusion of today’s session. To access the evaluation go to…”

    Some web conferencing tools have an evaluation tool built into the system that lets you pre-load questions and presents them to participants at the moment of your choosing, or as participants exit .If your web conferencing tool does not include a built-in feedback mechanism, you can build an online evaluation on a web based tool (such as SurveyMonkey, Question Pro, etc) and send the link to participants by posting in the chat box or “pushing” the link to participants which will open a new browser on their screens.

    An evaluation of a training course delivered via web conference is very similar to an evaluation of a course delivered in a physical classroom.However in addition to the questions you typically include in your course evaluation for training in a face-to-face session, consider including questions that will provide feedback on:

    • Pace of session
    • Facilitator’s skill
    • The level of engagement/interactivity of the session
    • Effectiveness of delivering [your course name] in a virtual classroom
    • Interest in receiving more training in a virtual classroom

    Once you’ve gathered feedback from participants, share it with the facilitation team and see what you can learn from the evaluation.Hopefully you will be pleasantly surprised by the ratings and comments.You may even be able to pick out a testimonial or two to help you attract participants for your next web conference.

    Read More
  • Virtual Training Design

    Converting Chat Text into an FAQ

    September 24, 2009 /

    The chat feature of a web conference is a great way to interact with the audience. At the end of a web conference, the chat box is typically full of a variety of great comments, questions and answers. This text is a gold mine of information that can be reused by converting it into an FAQ. To do this, copy the entire text chat into Word. Delete text that is just “chatter” and whittle the chat text down to the important questions or comments. Then, start writing your FAQ, using the chat text as the foundation, but rewriting or rewording to provide context and clear information. Generally, this conversion process is best accomplished by someone who participated in the session or is knowledgeable about the topic.

    Now that you have a well-crafted FAQ, what’s next? One technique I’ve used is to email the FAQ to attendees and those who signed up but couldn’t attend the web conference. This technique works well when you deliver the same course or session more than once and you develop a comprehensive FAQ from all sessions so that attendees in one session can benefit from the questions and answers from another session on the same topic.

    Another technique for sharing your FAQ is to integrate it into your web site or online collaboration space. Depending on how and where you post the FAQ online, you can create a more permanent home for your FAQ and also make the FAQ visible to others who did not attend your session. For example, posting FAQs online from a virtual orientation program for new hires benefits all new hires, not just those who attended the session.

    Read More
  • Virtual Training Design

    Putting on Your Marketing Hat

    March 5, 2009 /

    Last week I attended a webinar hosted by Ken Molay of Webinar Success on the “Secrets of Lead-Generation Webinars.” While the webinar had a marketing slant, several of his ideas were applicable to a variety of web conferencing events, including learning events. Let’s face it, we all need to put on a marketing hat. A couple of notable tips from Molay are:

    “Get the audience to have a stake in the webinar – ask them to send questions before the event.”

    I like to send a pre-course survey before a web conference to get a sense of the learners’ experience level, needs and of course to see if they have specific questions they would like to address during the course.

    “Reminders: send the day before and again 1-3 hours before the event. In the reminder email, remind people of the value proposition so they remember why they signed up for your event. ”

    The timing of email reminders is critical, and I agree with Molay’s suggestion. Also make sure the reminder is coming from an email address that the learner expects. Ideally, all communications about your event should come from the same email address.

    Read More
  • Virtual Training Design

    What Do Web Conferencing and the Presidential Election Have in Common?

    October 29, 2008 /

    Polling! Presidential election season is in full swing right now in the United States and that means the media reports on a myriad of poll results daily. If you look closely at the poll questions they are generally clear and unbiased, although every now and then a biased question surfaces.

    Polling is one of my favorite features in a web conference. Well-designed polls can enhance a web conference and give a boost to your audience engagement. Poorly designed polls can frustrate your audience and have the opposite effect. To avoid such pitfalls, think of polls as ‘mini-surveys.’ We can apply best practices from surveys in a web-conference to maximize the results of polling: avoid leading questions, eliminate unclear language, limit answer choices, etc. I explored this topic in depth in an article on Best Practices for Polling in Web Conferences if you are interested in learning more.

    Read More