How do you make online sessions as interactive as face-to-face?

The Tool Trap: Be mindful of just grabbing the "usual suspects" without thinking holistically about the experience we want to create. Duct-taping together tools that are familiar might be quick, but it's clunky for participants. It is important to remember that most tools weren't made for facilitating, so we end up MacGyver-hacking disjointed workarounds. And that is on us, not the participants - they shouldn't have to endure our technical limitations.

We should be wary of cognitive overload when we line up many tools for our participants. The challenge I place myself is to design an online workshop, for example, with 2 to 3 tools. The better virtual collaboration tools can address most if not all activities that we need.

Don't forget bandwidth! Not all of your participants will enjoy the same quality of internet access. Consider your audience and include low-bandwidth, high-engagement activities as needed. It's also worth noting that participants in some countries will not have access to Google products, and attendees from low-resourced areas may not have access to Office products.

Covid forced us to redesign curriculums which were delivered in residential training to face-to-face online training. Rewriting the curriculum and with optimal use of tools on Zoom viz. polls, whiteboard, breakout rooms, hand raise, reactions, and spotlight helps in making very interactive training. It is best to have a co-facilitator who manages participant interactions like on chat and hand raise and ensures that tools like polls and breakout rooms are configured as per need, while the main facilitator ensures that the session flow is maintained and optimally used white board to summarise or note responses from participants. Other collaborative tools viz. Mentimeter can help make word clouds and make the process more interactive.

In our bid to differentiate and be unique, we tend to choose tools that look 'fancier' or more impressive. While the pull and attractive factor is important, recognize that most of the time, simplicity will do more than just make things look shiny. Balancing the simplicity and wow factor is key in choosing tools.

The Planning Trap: Beware the "Content Fallacy" - believing good content alone ensures effective online facilitation. The real value lies in thoughtful orchestration using balanced visuals, interactivity, and skillful sequencing. With meticulous planning and artful content orchestration, you can elevate online workshops from average to exceptional. This requires intention and preparation - there are no shortcuts to impactful virtual sessions.

L'ordre du jour est l'étape prépondérante : J'annonce le thème Je définis la(es) promesse(s) Je segmente le déroulement avec les stades et les évaluations intermédiaires. Outil pour le formateur, feuille de route pour les apprenants

Depending on the topic and target outcomes, presenting different ways to interact with the content supports better learning and understanding as well as providing the foundation for creative solutions. For example, careful planning that uses different activities, brings in different voices and guides the discussion by giving collaborative space to your participants. Skilled facilitation lets participants feel engaged and in control of the session, while following the meeting agenda, timeline, and achieving the target outcome.

Use an agenda tool to design sessions like Sessionlab where you can define everything for the event in one easy to follow place. Practice the session beforehand so you can test your timing and expectations. This is another instance where a support person can track time and help keep you on track as the facilitator. For online sessions, design short intervals, shorter than you might want or think is best, when sharing content with the participants to keep them active and engaged. In between the intervals engage the participants by having them change their physiology and therefore their attention and energy. Design and practice these in advance, so you ask with confidence and expectation of participation.

Dans une session en ligne, il peut y avoir des pertes de temps liés à des questions techniques et des choses non ma?trisables par le stagiaire. Prévoir une ossature de base qui prend beaucoup moins de temps que celui prévu dans la session et des compléments poussant plus loin les détails si tout se passe bien et qu'on a le temps. L'ossature de base seule doit déjà apporter une formation consistante.

Agree and I would also add to keep the objectives clear and concise. While designing content, wear the participants hat and walk through the content with clear outcomes.

Camera on or off? Many people endure back-to-back virtual meetings, and that can be an energy drainer. Decide in advance which meetings are mandatory for video, and which ones are OK for cameras to be off. Not every meeting needs it!

It’s important to make sure that you understand the goals and desired outcomes of the client organization, it’s important to leverage all interactive aspects that are available and eliminate the “talking head” webinar. Breakouts, interactive competitions, white boarding activities, discussions, etc. They can’t be arbitrary they must be meaningful and impactful. It must mirror being in the room with people.

The importance of this cannot be overstated! Especially when delivering training to managers, it can be really helpful to call out at the start of the session. I often say something like "I know you all have a million things to do. So if you are too busy, feel free to log off - no hard feelings, we will schedule you for another session. But if you stay, I ask that you be present. Forget about email, quality assurance etc for an hour and participate to get the most out of this training."

One factor to consider would be to set an agreement with the norms or have the audience co-create the norms. We want to demonstrate some empathy here and making them agree together achieves a great first step into the online facilitation session.

It can be difficult to maintain concentration when sitting at a desk for extended periods of time. Think outside the box and encourage learning formats that get participants moving, despite the technology. If it's a beautiful day, encourage everyone to get outside, go for a walk; use their earbuds to enhance mobility. Another idea is to create or suggest a podcast to allow asynchronous learning. This modality also allows those with ADHD to utilise movement tasks in the home (exercise, mundane chores, etc) to help focus on the learning material they are listening to.

What @benjaminaw said. PLUS : treat your participants as humans…! Toilet breaks, drinks breaks, encourage pet participation and get people to stand and jiggle about!

Small groups can be powerful- it can be intimidating to break up a large group and put folks into small groups and then travel around, but it can be key to helping break up he experience and let people play together in diads and triads and then report back via the chat with well crafted prompts once back in the larger group. Highlighting their successes in their small groups can help make folks feel and be successful. I agree that more methods the better even when it can feel like a stretch for the facilitator.

Be mindful of sending participants elsewhere during your sessions unless you're going to give them time and space to explore it in realtime. When sharing links as resources, people tend to try to multitask by going to the link right away which divides focus and burns unnecessary energy. If you do want to share resources, bring in the relevant details to your teaching, and offer to send the link to the full resources at the end or in a follow up email or other communication so they don't have to worry about navigating to it during the session.

I think encouraging participation is one of the best ways to engage with a group virtually. I try to make the session a conversation. I check in that the participants know the key concepts we are discussing by asking questions. I also encourage participants to share their experiences - leading to relatablility - with thier peers. This helps them engage with one another more effectively, as well.

Asking the group what they want to learn from the session. That way, you can tie together some of your material to their objective.

The better the prompt and questions you use to instigate participation the better. There is an art of well crafted prompts and it's worth the time up front. I like prompts that are: 1) brief and easily phrased 2) don't have a "right" answer but a "rich" answer 3) allow for folks who are shy to be rewarded with their participation 4) easy to let folks practice showing up

Some ways I encourage participation: 1. I get participants to intention set both normally and intuitively at the start to focus their awareness on what they want for themselves. Then they contemplate whether they achieved it at the end. 2. I share my experience and then invite participants by name to share theirs should they want to. 3. I pay attention to feedback; ask clarifying questions and then recognize key skills that the participant developed in the process. 4. I reassure participants that they may be as creative as they feel like in their responses without judgement. 5. I encourage humor by enjoying laughter with them.

This is so important to get buy in from the participants. When they feel heard they tend to be more engaged and feel empowered to ask questions, offer feedback and be more engaged in general.

This is perhaps the most important of all points here. One of the things that allows me to be extremely flexible and current is to be fully present to what's happening in the room. Sometimes participants respond to facilitation techniques counterproductively and it's important to not take it personally and maintain focus on what it is bringing up for the participant(s). You can only do that when you're fully focused on them so you can better understand and get a deeper understanding of what's happening. This approach helps me to uncover critical opportunities for the change the participant and the group is hoping for.

If appropriate, give participants access to slides, handouts, and resources beforehand just in case the technology decides to be uncooperative. I held a workshop where we couldn’t use the “share screen” function but everyone had the slides sent as an email as a back up. Think about alternative connection options. In one workshop we had multiple issues with sound and ended up all dialling in using a different platform so that we could continue. In both cases, we could troubleshoot and come up with solutions because we had time before and at the beginning of the scheduled workshop to set up, test the platforms and connections, and adapt. The more problems you encounter, the better prepared you are for next time.

When things break and it's a workshop- it's ok to simply take a pause: "come back at 10 min to the hour" and take the 5 min, the 15 min you need to reset- maybe you need to refresh instructions or redirect a module that isn't resonating. It's ok to take a pause and come back in an interactive and longer session.

Remember Murphy's law when you are planning - something is likely to go wrong and at the worst time. Build in pivot points and extra time.

Excellent preparation can help when things don't go as expected. Create backup plans, so you are as prepared as you can be with what to do next. Be fully present and understand the needs and experience of the participants to help you pivot in realtime. Mindfully show participants that imperfection is okay and figure out the next right step to support your participants and yourself to continue delivering with the most value for the participants.

Take more frequent breaks in a long online meeting than you would in a live meeting! End meetings at least 5 minutes early to give people a chance to take a pause between meetings!

I encourage participants to identify 1-3 actions that they can put in place after the online session to embed their learning. I also like to share additional resources after my online sessions (often things I have referenced during the session) so that participants can continue to learn and grow.

I love chad Littlefields idea of connection before content. I've learnt this the hard way, making the information king and left the rapport building and connecting as wise humans secondary. People have so much experience, knowledge and wisdom so they need space for that to come out. So start with this space, introduce others spaces to connect ideas with experiences and new insights. Allow the new models to breath and perculate in their psyche and then allow the space to plan to integrate it practically into their everyday work life.

Here are some things that work for me. Start positively by asking people why they care about the topic (say improving customer service) or their best experience of giving or receiving it. Listen to everybody and give each person time to talk. Put people in small groups quickly to share what is already working and their dreams. Encourage them to listen to each other. Let go of any need to control the content of the discussions. Our job is to help them talk and listen to each other. Ask them to talk to each other in small groups about what they have each decided to do to deliver their dream. Review the event. What did people learn? What worked well? What could be better next time? Any comments on this approach are welcome!