How can you use digital tools for facilitation?

1 Benefits of digital tools

Digital tools can offer many advantages for facilitation, such as expanding your reach and audience to include people from different locations, time zones, and backgrounds. Additionally, multimedia, interactive, and gamified elements can be used to make your sessions more engaging, fun, and memorable. Moreover, digital tools can help you communicate with your participants through chat, polls, surveys, and other features. Finally, these tools can improve your documentation and evaluation by enabling you to record, store, and share your sessions, data, and outputs. You can also use analytics and reports to measure your impact and improvement.

2 Challenges of digital tools

Digital tools can also present some challenges for facilitation, such as technical issues with connectivity, compatibility, security, or functionality that can disrupt sessions and frustrate participants. It may be difficult to capture and sustain the interest and involvement of your participants in an online environment. Additionally, you may lose some of the non-verbal cues, emotional expressions, and social dynamics that are essential for building trust, empathy, and collaboration among your participants. Furthermore, you may need to invest time, money, and effort to learn how to use digital tools effectively and to adapt your facilitation style, strategies, and techniques to the online context.

3 Tips for using digital tools

To make the most of digital tools for facilitation and overcome any challenges, it's important to plan and prepare. Choose the tools that suit your purpose, audience, and budget, and test them beforehand. Additionally, provide clear instructions and guidelines for your participants on how to access and use the tools. During the session, use a mix of digital tools to complement each other and support your facilitation objectives. Use interactive and creative methods to encourage participation, feedback, and reflection. Balance synchronous and asynchronous tools to optimize the time and energy of your participants. Communicate frequently with your participants using chat, video, and audio features to create a friendly atmosphere. Polls, surveys, and quizzes can be used to check the pulse and mood of your participants. Breakout rooms, whiteboards, and brainstorming tools can facilitate group work. Finally, document your sessions with digital tools, evaluate your performance using analytics and reports, collect feedback from participants, and reflect on your strengths and areas for improvement.

4 Examples of digital tools

Digital tools can be incredibly useful for facilitation, each offering their own features, benefits, and limitations. Zoom is a popular video conferencing tool that allows you to facilitate live sessions with up to 1,000 participants, with features including chat, polls, breakout rooms, whiteboard, screen sharing, recording, and transcription. Miro is a collaborative online whiteboard that permits visual and creative sessions with unlimited participants. Mentimeter is an interactive presentation tool that allows you to facilitate engaging and interactive sessions with up to 2,000 participants. Kahoot is a gamified learning tool for facilitating fun and educational sessions with up to 2,000 participants. Padlet is a collaborative online bulletin board that enables collaborative and creative sessions with unlimited participants. There are many more options available depending on your needs, preferences, and budget; the key is to choose digital tools that enhance your facilitation skills and outcomes rather than replace them.

5 Here’s what else to consider

This is a space to share examples, stories, or insights that don’t fit into any of the previous sections. What else would you like to add?