Many of us are great at delivering in-person training sessions but in the past few years, in order to have trainers and participants from anywhere across the globe, virtual training became a buzzword, more so during the lockdown.
But how does one make a virtual session effective when you have limited control over the participants? Here are a few sure-shot ways that will help you engage your participants better and become a pro at successfully conducting a virtual training session.
Introduce the participants to the technology
Having a trustworthy, easy-to-use, and robust technology is vital to sustaining a good session. Combining this technology with an application or platform with a good user interface helps get all the participants and trainers connected together. Some of such applications to use with your VTT virtual tools include Zoom, AdobeConnect, WebEx, and so on. Different participants may join at different times but you can conduct a poll on the training topic among your arrived audience to utilise that time.
Innovative ideas to break the ice with technology
Holding a small knowledge game or playing with funny virtual background can actually encourage people to actually start participating at the beginning of the session itself. A quick quiz with bonus points for each correct answer can also be a good way to increase competition and engagement.
Be clear about the objectives and expectations
Your participants might simultaneously want to do other tasks while the training is going on. Request them to shut down other projects and tasks before starting. Give a brief introduction about the session, such as quizzes or Q&A sessions, for your participants to be ready.
Prepare compelling content for an interactive session
Less is more. Your slides should not be text-heavy as they eventually kill participant interest. Prepare bullet points with highlighted important keywords/phrases, include attractive visual aids in the form of videos, infographics, pictures, pie charts, graphs, memes, and other similar tools. You can also divide your participants into different breakout rooms for creating ideas on applying the concepts taught in the session. Seek answers from them, encourage them to ask questions, and use illustrations to explain the concepts.
Do introduce some virtual tea breaks!
Well, who doesn’t like to take a break? It gets tiring to continuously sit in front of the screen trying to focus. A 10-15 minutes break with an on-screen countdown timer works well for that. Mute yourself during the break and ask the audience to do the same. Begin again with a quick quiz on things taught before the break to get the audience’s involvement again.
Insist up on camera and chatbox use
Always enable your webcam and ask your attendees to do the same. Enabling the webcam makes the session interactive, especially for shy participants. You can ask one of your team members to filter questions from the chatbox to be answered towards the end of the session. Also, always use a feedback link and encourage your participants to fill it towards the end of the session for improving your next sessions.
Strong facilitation is required for both virtual and in-person training. A well-planned, timely, informative, and engaging training session goes a long way in terms of learning as well as remembering the great training experience through an expert facilitator. Now use these tools and techniques and go ahead and have a great session!
