What Makes Online Learning Effective?

Isn’t this the million-dollar question? No? A couple hundred thousand, maybe? (Okay.  Maybe the answer is only worth a few hundred dollars.)

Whatever the value, a variation of this question has generated a terrific discussion in the ASTD LinkedIn group. The original post from Donna Gilliland, President of MOSTraining, Inc. read:

“Online Live Training: what challenges do you face? Have you started delivering training live online training yet? If so, which of the following tools to you use?”

She listed:

• GoToWebinar
• WebEx
• Telspan
• Others? 

Then she asked, “What do you find to be your greatest challenge in training live online?”

Several people chimed in, all of whom seemed to be focused on two key areas:

• Presenters’ skills
• Tools/technology

What’s missing here?!?

CONTENT!!!

Yes, I’ll keep preaching this. Yes, my face is blue from repeating it over and over. And no, I’m not tired of repeating myself quite yet.

Why is content so important?

Because if your content doesn’t match the delivery mode, it doesn’t matter how interesting, entertaining, adept, practiced, experienced or knowledgable your instructor/facilitator/trainer is, the online event will fail. Completely.

If your content doesn’t match the delivery mode, it doesn’t matter how many polls, chat and breakout rooms you use, how pretty your slides are, or whether you use phone or VOIP, the online event will fail. Utterly.

So I’ll say it again: your content needs to be presented in a way that enables your learners to learn. Sounds obvious, but failing to do this is the primary reason most online events fail.

Webinars are a great example. They’re easy to conduct and attend, relatively inexpensive, and everyone seems to be offering them. Even when they should be doing something else (see When A Webinar Is a Bad Idea).

Only after you’re sure you have decided on the best delivery mode for the content you’re training should you be thinking about how you’ll handle the technical side of things, and choose the instructor.

Period. End of discussion.

Now, if you’ll excuse me, I need to get some pink back into my face

Weave Your Own Webinar

Do you produce your own Webinars, or hire a company to do them? Why did you make that choice?

You do realize you have this choice, right?

Most associations I know hire a company to produce their Webinars. Depending on the company and the arrangement, they might be responsible for any of these tasks:

• Rehearse the presenters
• Promote the Webinar
• Moderate the session
• Record the session
• Process registrations

Small-staff organizations say it’s worth it to hand over a bundle of cash to have someone else take care of these responsibilities while they focus on more important events.

That might be so. But make sure this is the case — don’t just assume it is.

When we first ventured into Webinars, I weighed an important choice. For the same cost, we could license a Web conferencing system for a year or pay a Webinar production company the same amount to develop and hold just one Webinar.

I decided to license the system for a year, and it was the best decision I could have made. Here’s why:

• I learned the ins and outs of using the Web conferencing system. This was a professional development opportunity for ME and I immersed myself in it (and still do).

 

• Our staff is learning the system as well so they will be able to set-up virtual meetings and moderate Webinars as well — a professional development opportunity for them as well.

 

• We have been able to use the system for committee Web meetings — instead of spending critical time making sure everyone has the same version of the document and is looking at the same page, we can share documents of all sorts, add our notes to them (or, via desktop share, make real-time edits in the actual document). One committee has eliminated an in-person meeting and cut the meeting time from 8 hours to 2.

 

• Because we conduct our own Webinars, we keep every dime we bring in. This means we have been able to earn back the license fee and generate a healthy revenue — all with one successful Webinar. Offering CDs of the recordings after the live event could generate even more non-dues revenue (we’re about to find out). 

Has it taken some time to learn the system? I actually learned enough to conduct our first Webinar within three weeks of having the system available. This included learning the system myself plus train the three presenters. The answer to this question clearly depends on the system you’ve selected.

How much use do we get with the system, outside of the Webinars? This also depends on the system and your agreement. We have unlimited use of five concurrent host “rooms” for up to 15 attendees. Because our Webinars attract more than 15, we pay a small fee for each.

How much flexibility do we have? Again, depends on the system. We have options for audio conferencing, audio with operator conferencing, and Voice Over IP (VOIP). We can include polls and video, and attendees can take and keep notes, interact via chat, and we can send out the presentation if desired from the live session.

How do you decide whether to produce your own or hire out the task?

That’s the subject of the next aLearning Blog entry… stay tuned!