When most people hear the word webinar, they roll their eyes and think, “Gosh, those are so boring.” The challenge is how to make these webinars engaging. In this session we’ll brainstorm strategies to capture the learner’s attention while still delivering high quality professional education.
Presenting or attending a webcast, webinar or online seminar can be a challenging and frustrating experience. Even before the COVID-19 pandemic, short-form one- to two- hour online seminars were being used to deliver professional education for many different occupations. This short form of education is one of the ways professionals ensure they meet their licensure requirements and keep their skills fresh.
This session will explore what you, as online instructors, can do to engage your students and know that you are delivering meaningful education to your audience when you are presenting in an asynchronous context. How do we really know if the attendees just looked in for their professional development credit or if they’re really paying attention.
The convenience of joining an online seminar is appealing. Attending a webinar can happen almost anywhere. Fitting in an hour of professional development is much easier than devoting an entire day to attending multiple in-person sessions. Webinars of this kind are also cost effective because there are no travel costs which makes them easier to fit into staffing budgets.
During this session, participants can choose to be a presenter or an audience member. Participants can join a small teams of presenters who will be assigned a random topic and some props. It will be their job to turn their topic into a short, interactive presentation. The audience, through the use of a polling tool and body language, will vote and give feedback to the presenter teams on both the interactive nature of their the presentation but the quality of the instruction.
After this exercise, the following questions will be debated:
- What are the biggest challenges you, as webcast instructor, have while presenting?
- What are the biggest challenges you, as a webcast participant, face when attending a webcast?
- What role do tools like PowerPoint and Google Slides have in delivering short, engaging professional development?
- Is interactivity overrated?
These are huge and important questions that will not be answered in 45 minutes. What we can do is discuss these issues, share ideas, and think more deeply about how to stop feeling like we’re presenting to an audience of none.