Second, work on your delivery

This is the third article in a five-part series. Start here - 4 Big Tips for pivoting your courses from in-person to online.

How you say is as important as what you say.

As teachers, instructors and facilitators, you know this truth better than anybody else. Impactful delivery stays with learners long after long bulleted lists and job aids are forgotten. In fact, if we are being totally truthful, a lot of teaching/training in-class is indeed performance art.

Performance needs practice to perfect. And that is true with performance in a virtual world as well. And this holds true for both asynchronous as well as synchronous online courses.

In asynchronous courses, consider:

• Is your learning platform intuitive? Do learners know where they need to go to access their courses?
• Do your eLearning modules and videos open full screen? If not, what other distractions are learners dealing with?
• How are you organizing your quizzes and assessments? Organize your content in a way that is natural to the flow you want a learner to follow.
• In a similar vein, where are you keeping the required readings and additional resources?
• Have you considered adding social elements to the learning experience? If so, make sure the expectations with discussion forums, group work or live webinar attendance are crystal clear – these are the places where the most confusion occurs.
• And finally, how do learners know how they are doing? Can they check their progress and grades if applicable?

In a live virtual delivery model over web conferencing tools, consider:

•  Do not ignore the basics

If you’ve done virtual meetings and courses before – this may sound repetitive to you. Feel free to jump to the next point. But If not - these foundational points are the bare minimum you need to follow.

Make sure you are dress appropriately. I strongly recommended using your camera and showing your face. It brings personality to a rather impersonal environment. Ensure your equipment is working, lighting is good, and that you have a reasonably private space to conduct your web conference from. Pay special attention to the part of your space that is visible in the call and organize it to add to your story. You could strategically place your guitar in the background to initiate a side conversation about music, or your webcam may focus on your awards and certificates if that is what you want to highlight. If you do not have a private space, consider using the virtual backgrounds that some of these apps offer.

• Address the elephant in the room – tech issues happen to everyone.

These are the catchphrases of virtual meetings – don’t let them rattle you. In fact, it may be a good place to start your session. I know some trainers who have made this into a bingo game that runs concurrently with their session! If this is your first time on a particular platform, let the attendees know that at the very beginning. Good housekeeping slides at the start of a web session are always a good idea to lay down ground rules.

As much as possible, always record your virtual sessions and make them available for later viewing for people who’ve had connectivity or network issues.

• Play, Practice, Perform

There are exciting things you can do with technology now. Instructors use breakout rooms, whiteboards, polling, 360-degree images, mirroring, chats and many other features to bring interactivity, spontaneity and social connection in a web session. Pick the features you plan to use carefully - and choose the ones you are comfortable with. Take time to play with them and practice with family, friends or an unfortunate co-worker to make sure you are familiar with the controls on the day of. If something is more complicated than you want it to be, find an easier way to do it instead.

Confident, clear delivery is even more important in virtual online contexts

Confident, clear delivery is even more important in virtual online contexts, as we lose the benefit of face to face communication. It is worth taking the extra time to make sure you are well prepared to effectively deliver and meet the needs of your online learners. Soon, much like in-class delivery, it becomes fun!

In the next article, we’ll talk about adding engagement in your online course!