Open College of Ireland

I have to say my mind has been changed on this topic.  I formed the view in university in the seventies that lectures were a very poor way to deliver information and that independent learning was a more effective method.  Having worked quite a bit in facilitating live teaching online using PC based conferencing systems over the last six years, I must say that I’m a little taken aback by how much learners actually like them.    I was taught in college by excellent researchers who did not seem to be very interested in undergraduate teaching and had no training in teaching anyway.  I found the lecturers to be generally poor.   For the last few years I have been working with people who have volunteered to teach online and do so enthusiastically.  The students highly rate these live lecturres in their feedback (and particularly love having access to recordings).  So I have come around to the view that if done properly, lectures are a good way to teach.  Even better if you can get the audience involved.  This is irrespective of whether it is face-to-face or online.  And it’s not rocket science.  You don’t have to be a born presenter, it can be learned.    If you are interested in more, Adam Kotsko does a more comprehensive defence of the lecture here.

It has been my experience over a number of years now that when discussing online learning with people, they have a very fixed idea of what it is.  The most prevalent view of online learning is that of self paced interactive multi-media where the learner only interacts with a computer.  I often completely failed to put my points across because I was unaware that as I talked the listener was constantly thinking about the multi-media approach and was just plain mystified by some of the things I was saying.  These days, I generally start by explaining that there are many forms of online learning, including multimedia, but also communication based methods such as asynchronous Non-live bulletin board type) discussions or live webinars and conferences.  So if you are selling instructor led online training to a potential customer, make sure that you explain the distinction between this and other forms of online learning, and of course, the advantages of the instructor involvement as well.  There’s more on this topic on the onlignment blog.

There is much advice around on how to craft excellent public presentations.  But to what extent can we afford this level of effort for classes that we give online, week after week.  A book, by Carmen Taran, called “Better Beginnings”  is dedicated to  just the beginnings of presentations.  Like a lot of self-help books with a good central idea, you often wonder if the key concepts could be presented more briefly as most of us do not have that much time to read it.  This book is described as a coffee ‘table book’ and so might not be too demanding in that regard.  But then again maybe reading a good review may tell you all you need to know.

One of the fastest growing techniques in marketing is the marketing webinar (or live online seminar for those who hate that word).  It can be expensive to get someone else to organise and host webinars, but luckily for live online trainers they can use the exact same tools they use for their live classes.  If your conferencing system does not have a webinar registration system you can always do it quite efficiently using manual methods.  Post details of the webinar on your website along with a contact email address.  Then send standard access instructions to anyone who contacts you.

Free or low-cost webinars can be a great way to get the interest of prospective trainees, particularly when they are unsure of the medium or are unfamiliar with you as a quality trainer.  It can also allow you to capture data on potential leads for the future.

Here are a few blog postings that can give you some further pointers:

• Web Conferencing Can Open New Markets
• Creating Exceptional Lead Gen Webinars

I’m no great lover of Microsoft, but I have to say that Powerpoint has been a very useful tool for me and I get concerned at all the criticism it gets.  I’ve always believed that it is a fine tool if used correctly and the reason it is criticised so much is that it is misused so much.  This feeling of mine has been supported by this post on the Webinar Blog which seems to indicate that despite all the simple advice around for years on how to improve your Powerpoint presentations, people are still breaking these simple rules.  A recent survey by Dave Paradi indicated that these are the top five complaints about Powerpoint presentations:

• The speaker read the slides to us
• Text so small I couldn’t read it
• Full sentences instead of bullet points
• Slides hard to see because of color choice
• Overly complex diagrams or charts

Well if that is the case, then we should take heart.  It does not take much to make a Powerpoint presentation acceptable.  Just avoid those simple mistakes.

You may be interested in a discussion taking place on a trainingzone blog on distance coaching which you can find here.  If you want to read that or take part in that discussion why not hop over there.  However, it does seem to beg the question:  Could distance coaching just be a one-to-one version of instructor-led online training where communication is at the core of the process as opposed to e-learning content?  Perhaps there may be some economies of scale in delivering such coaching over the Internet, with those being coached having access to common resources but also a private line of communication with the coach.  Would it be possible to coaching experience or does this conflict with the idea of the experience being unique for each person?  If you have any comments on this issue, please post them here.

Part of the reason for the disappointment in multi-media based online learning is the lack of human interaction.  Although this has led many to believe that ‘blended’ face-to-face and online instruction is the best way, high quality  online communication may be satisfactory without any face-to-face sessions at all.  A recent research report seems to give some credence to the theory that communication is central to the success of online learning.  Read more here..

PowerPoint slide handouts, are not of themselves very useful.  The are designed to be used with added talking (or dialog) from the presenter.  The better your slides are (lees words), the less useful they are on without the dialogue.  If you use the ‘notes’ facility in Powerpoint to help you deliver a presentation, the ‘note’s pages that you print out end up being a much more useful standalone learning resource.  Perhaps, if when adding notes to Powerpoint, you consider both these purposes, you might automatically create a more useful and versatile learning resource.  The Webinar blog talks about this in some more detail: Using PowerPoint Notes To Create A Handout

Many believe that you cannot get the level of interaction with your class in a live online session that you can in face to face.  This ‘Onlignment’ blog post, suggests that Brainstorming is a feasible activity in an online class.  He suggests the need for an object oriented whiteboard, where everyone can post up their ideas and then the ‘chair’ could move them around to classify them.  If you have not got an object oriented whiteboard, or if you feel uncomfortable giving the students control of the whiteboard, why not ask them to contribute ideas in the chat area, and then as the teacher, organise them on the whiteboard.  Another angle might be to send people out into breakout rooms and do the breainstorming on their own and report back.

The Internet provides small businesses with the technologies to operate on a global scale at very low cost levels.  So says Google.  This would, of course, include freelance trainers and small training companies.  More about this in this article.