As we reviewed the assessments coming in after the pilot of a newly developed training course, two words stood out: breakout rooms. Half of our team expected the feedback on these virtual discussion groups to be negative, the other wondered why almost every participant wrote about them in their responses. We pored over the data […]
This recent demand that we all become online participants and facilitators has many rewards and challenges. There is a different intention to our interaction and our time together. Our learning environment has become more isolated and independent, regardless of a virtual screen. And though the boundary may be virtual, it should not replace checking our […]
We all face the situation of COVID-19 just now and for many of us, it means that our only chance to see friends and family is through online interaction. We miss face-to-face contact and await the time when it is again an option for us. But one result of this time will be that we […]
So … you’ve scheduled your webinar, sent out the invitations and marked your calendar with a reminder to log onto your selected platform 15-20 minutes early to make sure everything is ready to go. You’ll be ready to start on time – which will please your online crowd. Ending on time will also please them […]
Silence. Total silence. It was after one of the highlights for me of the Digital Education Masters program through The University of Edinburgh. Two world experts in their field had been discussing their topic together in a Skype class, with the rest of us listening in from around the world. When they finished, we were […]
There were many challenges throughout my course. Electricity was intermittent. English, the language of communication, had varying levels of understanding among participants. But the biggest challenge was the cultural shift to a dialogue approach to learning; a big shift for many in other courses too, but even more so here. Yet over the week I […]
One participant came to speak to me about how the training session had been for her. At this early stage as a trainer, I had thought it had been good, but I listened. I had engaged participants with the content and had facilitated good discussion, either in small groups within the class or sometimes as […]
I could sense around me that I was losing my learners. It was during an early experience of me training them to use software to help with language learning. But these learners had very different levels of experience of using software and while I was helping some who struggled to stay alongside, others already experienced […]
One of my great passions in life is using adult education theory to create learning-centered training – working out how learners can best learn so they then go on to flourish. A significant addition to this in recent years is digital education, to which there are mixed reactions among facilitators and learners. For facilitators, there […]
This post is the first in a series of three, co-created by Val Uccellani (Global Learning Partners) and Anouk Janssens-Bevernage (DynaMind eLearning). Read the other two posts in this series: 3 Things Seasoned Facilitators Can Learn From E-Facilitation and 5 Ways to Create Tough and Engaging Online Team Tasks. ***** Respect. Safety. Engagement. Inclusion. Relevance. […]