When I arrived in the US, I could not work in the country because I had a non-immigrant visa for NAFTA workers’ spouses. But I couldn’t just stay at home, so I helped with some training in my home country and other activities online. When you are not used to it, teleworking can be challenging, and training people online can be even more complicated. Everybody can relate to the first time they did online training and asked their first question: most likely, a mortal silence came back to them like an echo from the underworld.
There are several types of online training, but today, I would like to talk about synchronous training, a live presentation with an audience, and real-time questions, since it is the concern for most trainers with a new order in the world. When we migrate from a classroom with walls, seats, and a projector to an online setting, we need to adjust to this new environment. Many technical trainers and teachers may rely on the class’s mood to make sudden changes to the presentation or integrate new material. Others may rely on group work like a study case discussed and generates insights and excellent feedback in the class. I prefer this method to teach because I can rely on other sources of knowledge to build up an interesting discussion. And the list can be long and with many items; each teacher or trainer has worked very hard to develop their superpowers in the classroom. Thus, what can we do when we got stripped of our superpowers? Well, I found out that two factors are significant when you are teaching online: engagement (please, student don’t go to sleep because you decided to receive your class on your bed); and insights ( please, somebody out there ask something so we can make this a litter bit more interesting.)
We have to learn new ways to create exciting classes, and we have to dedicate more time to prepare for the course. At first, it may seem much work, but it was also the first time we taught a class: it is an investment. I am a true believer in education, and this world that we live in requires much knowledge if we don’t want to end up in the line of unemployment. The more time passes, the more education a young mind will need to acquire to tackle the present’s good jobs. Notice that I am talking about good jobs, not any job. Let’s invest in the future generations, and it is also an excellent opportunity to add to our resume a new skill: an excellent online trainer. The path that so far has given me good results is as follows: first the introduction to the class, a good start generates the mood; second, keep the attention of the student as much as possible, that gives continuity to the discussion; and lastly, a proper closure so we can state that the goals of the class or training have been met.
Engagement
The introduction is the most important part. What has worked for me is to have some homework done, generally, a reading if it is a conceptual class or a piece of code or activity that has to be done on the tool we are learning. Then, I usually introduce at the first five or ten minutes a pop-up quiz. The quizzes are not for everybody; I am the worst at them. For example, if you ask me what’s the result of two plus two and then multiply the result by two, I would probably flunk it, but as a student, they keep me alive because I know that the first activity is going to be a quiz and need to prepare and be ready. If the technical course doesn’t allow extra work, the exam can summarize the last class, so the students have to review the material. The elaboration of the quizzes means extra work from the professional trainer. The quiz should be web-based. I am used to working with Gototraining, which has excellent tools for online evaluations, and I will use it as a reference from now on, but I am not promoting the app. It is just because this is what I have been using so far.
The online quizzes allow me to have an immediate result, and I usually see what answers have the most problems, so I spend the next minutes resolving the issues with those questions. They also help the students because they know that something is coming up, so they need to pay attention. The quiz results also allow me to make direct questions to those who answered right or wrong, depending on the type of feedback that I am expecting. This activity sets the mood: everybody is alert and engaged. The first class is always the difficult one, but after that, the students become more motivated because they know that preparation is key to this first activity; they will be expecting questions and the format of the questions. Remember that people are good at recognizing patterns, and once the trainer sets their teaching pattern, the students will follow along.
Generate Insights
Now that we have our start, then comes the rest of the class; how do we keep the engagement? Well, the same way. If I am presenting a conceptual class, I usually give some reading beforehand to discuss the topic at hand; however, as every trainer has experienced, most of the time, the same persons will ask or participate. What I usually do to generate participation from different persons is to introduce polls during the class. I typically program polls with three or four questions. They are not quizzes, just polls, simple questions, and easy answers like yes or no. The results show me immediately if the new material is presented the right way, and I can make corrections directly and correct the wrong concepts. Depending on the content, I usually submit a poll every twenty minutes, and yes, I am substituting most of the questions to students with polls, so I avoid the awkward silence.
The final part of the class is the closure that summarizes the results, and if I am going to use this summary as a base for the next quiz, I make sure that every concept is very well explained. However, the most important activity is to design your classes and present them to a focus group. The questions in the quiz must be understood and well designed for your audience; if the exams do not comply with their primary purpose, the students will rest value to the activity, and it may be frustrating for them, so having a focus group for the quizzes it is always the best way to go. As I stated at the beginning, creating an online synchronous class is hard work, but in the end, you will have a very well-formatted course template that you can recreate in every class that you have. You will find your mojo again as a trainer.
Additional Tips
Another question that can come up is how to conduct technical training? Well, that is harder work but doable. When I started with technical online training, it wasn’t straightforward. Still, now many tools can help to set the technical environments without the burden of having every student with their computers ready. The trainer can create a virtual machine with all the environment ready and the labs, and they either can be downloaded by the student, or the trainer can install it in a server with an account for each student. There are also tools like GoToAssist, where you can see several computers on your screen and help every student from your seat. I am mentioning GoToAssist because this is the tool that I had used, but many apps can help you access your class computers. These apps help to supervise the workshops almost the same way as if you were with them in the computer lab.
Finally, I am listing a set of tools for online training that you can use to set your polls, quizzes, and labs. This is only a small list of what is out there for those who have not checkout before what tools can complement online training, but definitely, there is a lot. In the future, I shall dedicate some time to getting up to date on what is new, but I would welcome suggestions in the comments; I would really appreciate it.
- Gototraining has a lot of functionality. You can upload material and sent it to your class previously. You can also program your course and set the quizzes and polls. The feature that I like the most is the immediate response with statistics for answers; these results make my day because I can act immediately based on this information.
- Skype has interesting features like share presentations and polls; if we combine skype with a quiz tool, then we have excellent functionality for our course.
- Classmaker is a tool for quizzes and exams. I have used it before, and it has all the necessary elements to make a good exam.
- Webex is a good tool for presentations, but It lacks the exams and quizzes, but if you include skype or Classmaker to create your quizzes, you can create the right format for your class.
- VirtualBox to create virtual machines, you can set a virtual machine and send it to your students with all the development environments you need. However, always check out licenses; even if it is a virtual machine, there’s always a license agreement to fulfill.
- Repl.it is an online environment ready to use for several programming languages like python, R, Java, Node.js, and many more. The students just need to create an account.
The message is that there are many tools out there, depending on what you are teaching. But believe me, nowadays you can find what you need if you are really interested. I found what I needed ten years ago when I started doing online training: now there is much more. I am a computer science-oriented trainer; however, there are online labs for other courses; you just need to do a good search. Be positive and creative, and like every profession you need to practice: practice makes perfect!