Some Good Webinar Tips

I recently read what I consider to be a very good post about webinars from the HBR Blog Network written by Rachel Burstein who is a research associate at New America Foundation's California Civic Innovation project. In the post she identified what she saw as the weaknesses of using webinar as a learning tool and ways to make webinars more effective. I will divide this summary into two parts based on Rachel's assertions, 1) Why webinar's may not be so great for teaching and 2) How you can make webinars more effective for teaching.

Why webinar's may not be so great for teaching

• Webinars have the advantage of being ubiquitous which means lots of people in different places can view it at the same time but that doesn't make it an effective delivery method. To start with the content being delivered tends not to be tailored to the learners.
• Also the virtual experience of webinars does allow for a lot of engagement between the learners and speakers.
• Another thing that is also an issue is that there is no consequence for non-attendance, neither are there rewards if you do attend.
• There is also little or even no quality control applied to the webinars.

How you can make webinars more effective for teaching

The above mentioned points are not absolutes and there are certainly exceptions, but generally what can be done to ensure webinar developers engage learners and learners learn more from webinars?
Here are a few pointers.

• Be careful what you use webinars for. It's not fitted to communicating every type of information. For instance webinars may not be suitable for discussing innovation which requires more engagement but better for training to use a technology or giving details about some new legislation. So chose topics carefully.
• Focus webinars on training not analysis. Webinars are less effective when concentrated on topics for which there is no consensus or require a lot of customisation to fit the audience.
• Create opportunities for dialogue. Technology can allow questions to asked in real time and skilled facilitators can integrate the questions into the discussion.
• Help participants to grow their networks. Facilitators can circulate their contact details before the webinar starts and they can encourage participants to contact them through various online sources.
• Provide ways to help the participant display what they've learned. For example giving a short quiz or allow them to accumulate points towards their professional development. This will no doubt engage the learners more.
• Also provide notes which the learners can use after the webinar.

It's not just those designing and delivering webinars that need to be mindful but also those watching webinars can take some action to benefit more from the webinar.

• Choose webinars carefully according to how much value it will add to you. Don't register for every and any webinar.
• Watch webinars in groups. This can facilitae a discussion about the webinar topic among the group. Also people are more likely to attend when they know they will be in a group.
• Take and distribute notes.
• Use the webinar to network. If facilitators distribute their contact details, don't be shy to contact them.
• Ask questions during the webinar and talk to other colleagues who may be watching the webinar with you about your questions.

No learning delivery method can be perfect but these tips may go a long way in helping you get more out of webinars.

Crucial Reminder By Kirkpatrick

Nowadays I hardly ever buy books because I spend a lot of time reading from a number of sites such as HBR Blogs, Learning Solution Magazine, Chief Learning Officer, Entrepreneur, Inc and Harvard Business Review. That is not to say that I won't be buying and reading books. I have a number of instructional design books in my Amazon learning and development wishlist that I really want to read, but I need to get a kindle first. No more killing trees for me.
One of the sites I also learn from is Kirkpatrick Partners. Offcourse the name sounds familiar because Kirkpatrick is the evaluation guy.
I routinely receive a newsletter from the Kirkpatrick website with lots of useful information. Just this week I was reading the Quick Tip series from the site. Currently I think they are at Quick Tip 3. After reading the three articles I came up with a list of learning points which I feel are important to any learning and development practitioner and here they are:

1. When discussing learning and development with your stakeholders use business language that they understand not your own industry jargon.
2. Create a robust evaluation framework that can identify the impact of training in the workplace and on the organisation (he would say that wouldn't he?).
3. Provide on the job support tools possibly after a learning programme to encourage application of learning back at work.
4. Create knowledge sharing communities, either physical or virtual.
5. Learning does not end after a classroom training course or an e-learning course completion.
6. Identify what factors affect the application of learning back in the workplace and how to monitor them.
7. From the onset before any learning programme discuss possible barriers to application of learning in the workplace with necessary stakeholders.
8. Work with stakeholders to overcome barriers to effective learning application.
9. Make sure you identify clearly that learning is the right solution for a problem that needs to be tackled.
10. Be assertive enough to tell stakeholders that training alone will not lead to improved performance results.

That's it, summary of my learning from the first three kirkpatrick's quick tips. You might want to have a read of the tips yourself. Here's the website:

http://www.kirkpatrickpartners.com/Blog/tabid/135/Default.aspx