The global COVID-19 pandemic has helped quickly pivot the training and development industry to online delivery of training courses that have traditionally been in a live, classroom setting. Glass of Learning has always used online resources for continued post-program learning transfer. With the current demand for online modes of training, we’ve taken steps to pivot our programming from classroom to virtual to meet our client needs for high-quality programming in an engaging, online approach.
Here are three things to consider when converting classroom training to virtual.
Virtual Video-Conference Platforms – we took courses on how to deliver effective virtual programming, learned the ropes and became Certified Virtual Facilitators through the International Institute for Facilitation. Video conference options such as Zoom, Microsoft Teams, Webex and Google Hangouts can be used to deliver effective programming virtually. There are numerous tools, such as whiteboards, polls and annotations that can be used that make online presentations interactive and engaging.
Virtual Collaboration Platforms – there are also are a number of online resources that can be used outside of the video conference platforms to help make your online collaboration interesting and fun. Using platforms like Mural, Miro or Group Map are great for sharing ideas and collaborating virtually. Mentimetre is an excellent platform to build real-time word clouds with groups and capture the main ideas from a discussion.
Online Platform for Experiential Activities – a key piece of the Glass of Learning training involves experiential activities and experiences that help bring the learning to life. To create these experiences online, we developed a virtual platform called Virtual Glass to house our experiential activities. This platform pairs well with other video conference options as participants open it in a separate tab. It allows participants to get familiar with one platform throughout a learning program which aids the learning journey. Facilitators access a variety of activities in one place to keep the learning fresh, interesting, and engaging. In addition, participant’s notes are viewed together, to reflect a classroom activity and can be rolled up into PDF’s for easy follow-up summaries.
Virtual learning can be high quality, fun and interactive – finding the right tools online is the key to accelerating your programming to stand out in the virtual world.
