You’re tackling the challenge of delivering training and presentation online using a synchronous interface. You’re up to your eyeballs in administrative activities like scheduling and registrations. But at the same time you must prepare learners to learn online and coach speakers to present online. And then there’s learning the technology itself! It’s like being Magellan, wanting to make it all the way around the globe, but failing to anticipate the obstacles and having no one to ask.
We know how you feel because in The eLearning Guild’s Online Forum Series, we’re heading around the globe with our programs, too. We’ve already encountered some things we’d like to tell you about. So let us guide you through the stormy seas and blustery headwinds of creating synchronous online programs.
Six months ago, The Guild began presenting the monthly Online Forum Series. Each of these events brings four 75- minute conference sessions to you in one day. We address timely themes and offer perspectives on each theme from practitioners, authors and industry leaders. We teach theories, strategies, and tools that our audience can identify with and can put to use immediately. (For more information about these sessions, see Sidebar 1.)
The eLearning Guild Online Forum Series presents four 75-minute conference
sessions on a new topic on the second Thursday of each month.
To date, our themes have included:
- Managing and Delivering High-Impact Synchronous Learning
- Design Strategies for Producing Highly Interactive e-Learning
- A Practical Look at e-Learning Standards & Learning Objects
- Management Strategies for Successful Outsourcing
- Design Strategies for Leveraging Games & Simulations in e-Learning
- Managing the Value Metrics and R.O.I. of e-Learning
Speakers have included: Bob Mosher, Jennifer Hoffman, Ruth Clark,
Sivasailam Thiagarajian aka “Thiagi”, Mark Bucceri, Patti Shank and many more.
For information about upcoming sessions, please visit
http://www.elearningguild.com/pbuild/linkbuilder.cfm?selection=doc.634.)
We’ve enjoyed a lot of interest from Guild Members and Associates, as well as from non-Guild Members. We’ve heard excellent feedback from participants and speakers. We’ve had the opportunity to make a few mistakes, and learned from them. In the true spirit of the Guild, and because many of you have asked, I’ll begin sharing some of the lessons we’ve learned and strategies we’ve employed while planning, producing and presenting this online conference series. This is an overview and the first of several articles and columns you’ll see on this topic.
The learning environment
We selected Elluminate’s Live! Version 5 for our online interface. While features, functions, and usability may vary among them, all online interfaces provide software tools and a place on the Web to share visuals and audio with a large group of people in real time. Rather than attempt to compare Elluminate to other products like WebEX, Centra, Live Meeting (PlaceWare), Breeze, or InterWise, I’ll reference Elluminate and use their language to focus on our Online Forum Series as a case study.
Speakers and participants log into the same secure website where they are able to show and view PowerPoint slides or any running application. In addition, both speakers and participants can draw on a virtual whiteboard, and they can click emoticon buttons like “Smiley Face” or “Thumbs Down” to convey their response to a question or reaction to a statement. (See Figure 1.) A menu option turns on polling buttons that appear on the toolbar so that speakers can pose a question on a PowerPoint slide and offer up to five responses. Participants simply click on the letter corresponding with their choice and Elluminate then displays that letter next to their name in the Participant Info window or “list of who’s logged in” window. Thanks to the Voice-over-IP (VoIP) technology in Elluminate, participants can hear audio through the PC speakers rather than through the telephone. By using a PC microphone, they may also speak to everyone in the session.
FIGURE 1 The Elluminate interface provides many features to support real-time dialog between speakers and participants. The list of participants is in the upper left corner of the screen. Participants use this area to respond to questions and polls, to “applaud,” or to “raise their hands” to indicate a question. The Direct Messaging area allows group or private text exchanges. The White Board contains the presentations or it can be used for group collaboration.
Production and technology
Speakers can choose to show slides pre-created in PowerPoint, or show a file from any other application to provide a focal point for the entire session (otherwise, why not just conference call?). PowerPoint slides can be loaded directly into most online interfaces and disseminated to the participants as soon as they join the session. Elluminate converts the slides to a static .wbd (or whiteboard) format, which is similar to the .pdf format created by Adobe Acrobat Distiller. You can also convert the file in advance to save time and to access different screen resolutions. The conversion reduces the file size which means the file transfers more quickly. After conversion, the speaker and the participants can annotate or write over the slides, using the whiteboard annotation tools (see Figure 2) but they can no longer edit the slides as PowerPoint in the Elluminate interface.
FIGURE 2
Elluminate’s whiteboard annotation
tools permit the speaker
and participants to annotate
or write over slides in
the interface.
If speakers prefer to show a file from another application, they cannot upload it into PowerPoint. However, most interfaces offer an Application Sharing feature that displays any application or file they can see on their own machine to all participants. It reminds me of video cameras in a store window. When you wave, you can see yourself waving on the adjacent TV screen. The main concern when using Application Sharing is that everything is real time. There is no opportunity to transfer content to participants’ machines in advance, so broadband connectivity becomes much more important. Also, speakers must consider what the streaming data looks like to participants. If it takes two nanoseconds for the speaker’s screen to change and 10 seconds for some participants to receive the change, then the number of changes they make must be reduced and the speaker should allow some time for catch-up. We highly encourage all registrants to use broadband when connecting for sessions that will rely heavily on Application Sharing. Some participants participate happily and successfully if they are willing to tolerate slower refresh rates on dialup connections at 56K, and if they are willing to accept the warning.
One of our key considerations for choosing an online interface was Voiceover-IP technology, rather than conference calling, in order to use state-of-the art technology and to reduce the participant’s expense for each event. VoIP does have its drawbacks, including a small learning curve for how to be heard, the requirement of a PC headset (or limited ability to communicate with other participants), and potentially frequent queries of, “Can you hear me?” which rarely occur on a phone call.
Even if someone has presented online before, it’s important to be clear about how to use the features and language of the interface. For instance, in some it’s “Direct Messaging” rather than “Chat” and users “Join” a session, rather than “log into” a session.
Speakers and moderator: Presentation
I serve both as a presentation coach and as an event moderator. We decided to do this so that we can keep session delivery relatively consistent and not require that each speaker be an expert at using the interface. My role as coach is to be sure speakers can join a session, can use the basic interface features, and that they have a good sense of the options available for them to incorporate into the design of their session. Some speakers choose to show “polling” slides with questions and up to five possible answers designated with letters. During the session, the speaker asks the questions and requests that the participants respond by clicking on the appropriately labeled button on the toolbar (A-E). (See Figure 3.)
FIGURE 3 Participants respond to speaker questions by using labeled buttons on a toolbar.
As coach, I help speakers to understand where these polling slides would be useful. As moderator, I turn on the Polling buttons at the appropriate time during the session. Some speakers design small group discussions for their sessions. This requires organizing the participants into subgroups and moving them into virtual breakout rooms. In the breakout rooms, the small groups discuss a topic by using audio or by typing in Direct Messaging (like Instant Messenger, or Chat). Then they bring their ideas and conclusions back to the main room to compare and share with the entire group.
Presenter issues
Online speakers tend to fall into one of several camps, represented by these examples:
Expert Eric believes that online synchronous presenting isn’t that much different from what he already does with an in-person audience. Eric feels confident that he can transition to the interface and deliver a successful presentation with little or no preparation — and he tends to resist help or advice.
Realistic Rick realizes there’s a learning curve when moving to online delivery and is eager to learn how to use the tools to present. Rick is open to feedback and coaching and schedules time to prepare well in advance of the event.
Norah Neophyte is anxious about using an online synchronous training modality. The language alone is frightening, much less trying to manage the technology. Norah overestimates the difficulty of transitioning to online delivery and dreads presenting without the benefit of eye contact.
Gary Green has little experience presenting in front of any audience. Gary plans to read slides and notes verbatim. He has never seen an online presentation. Luckily, so far there have been no Gary’s involved in an Online Forum event. If you need help with Gary, call me. I have a few strategies that can bring him up to speed quickly.
The reality is that all of these people need some amount of coaching and preparation. Yes, even the very experienced person needs to acclimate to the interface and to coordinating tasks with the moderator. Don’t let anyone off the hook! Offer several opportunities and require each speaker to spend some time in the software interface, preferably with the moderator, a coach or a speaker who is experienced in the chosen interface. Dead air and online fumbling are awkward and obvious. A few minutes of planning and preparation can eliminate many potential problems.
Practice, practice, practice
I schedule three different opportunities for speakers to practice with me and with fellow speakers to prepare specifically for their Online Forum session. Each practice session is done live online to increase all speakers’ familiarity with the interface. Online Forum events involve several speakers each. During the first session, the All Speaker Meeting, we provide a brief overview of the interface and tools, then quickly move to each speaker’s outline of their own part of our event. The first speaker in the lineup is usually tasked with creating an overview of that month’s Online Forum theme or subject. For instance, what relevance does something like e-Learning Standards & Learning Objects have in the real world?
Each subsequent session drills deeper into practical application and relevant tools. The All Speaker Meeting outline review ensures that each speaker sees and hears where his material fits into the plan for the day. Doing this prevents overlap of content and encourages cross-referencing of ideas from one session to the next. For instance, a speaker may say, “As you heard in this morning’s session, game technology is not just for playing games. We’ve found that real learning and long-term recall are some of the positive side effects.”
The second practice session is one-on-one with me. This session focuses on the instructional design of each session and the preparation of each speaker individually. I ask the speakers to come prepared with their draft PowerPoint slides or the application files they will want to share. We go through the content as quickly or slowly as they feel they need to at that point. Some simply ask questions. Others work through every slide and the talk track that goes with each. During these second sessions, I focus on two main areas: (1) opportunities I see for the speaker to encourage interaction among participants, and (2) what I as moderator need to do or say during the session to help the speaker. Ideally, speakers leave notes for me within the Notes section of the PowerPoint presentation. For example, “KAREN: Please send audience to www.elearningguild. com.” That way I can just copy and paste the text of the URL into the Direct Messaging box. A new browser window will then automatically open on each participant’s machine.
I also show speakers how to regulate their own volume without needing to ask, “Can you hear me?” Volume levels are often displayed as colored bars in the interface. Knowing that green is good and red is too loud is useful. Simply moving the Mic slider bar to the left will decrease the volume.
I teach them how to display my preferred window layout option (Wide window layout) in order to see a larger display of the Participant Info and the Direct Messaging windows.
I like to suggest to speakers that they can and should turn off the Talk button (microphone) periodically to take a drink of water, clear their throats, or just breathe. It’s impractical to think you can talk for 75 minutes straight and it’s rude to never allow a word in edgewise. Speakers can ask a question and then encourage participants to use the Talk button to respond verbally as an alternative to typing their responses in Direct Messaging. The variation in voices can be stimulating and some participants prefer to contribute verbally. Also, when reading Direct Messaging, it’s better to turn off Talk than to try to read and talk at the same time.
The third practice session is a Dress Rehearsal. At this time each speaker has the opportunity to test final changes to his presentation, update me on technical needs and ask last-minute questions about presenting in this interface. Again, some speakers prefer to go slide-by-slide and practice the entire talk track, while other speakers just ask questions. All event speakers are welcomed and encouraged to participate in each other’s dress rehearsal to ask questions that participants might ask or to map connections to their own content. This session is typically recorded for benchmarking or for review and coaching purposes, if needed.
I also encourage all speakers to join any of the generic instructional sessions hosted by Elluminate’s support staff every week. This provides those who need extra practice an additional opportunity.
