If you are trying to find ways to continue employee or client learning and haven’t worked through virtual training media before, consider the following tips:

eLearning Approach: When planning for elearning content design, create a “storyboard” or a map for the journey the student will experience in your virtual environment.

Things to consider:

• Use different types of media; a combination of visual, audio and text, but don’t overwhelm the student.
• Use pictures or diagrams to initially present a complex subject.
• Watch how you speak when giving live or recorded virtual instruction. Typically, instructors will struggle with speaking too fast or being too robotic. People generally absorb information more effectively when they feel like there’s a “human” element included and when content is personalized, conversational, and informal.
• Many elearning platforms now offer the ability to record your live lessons. Watch your recording and chat log and critique it to make it better.
• Plan for online friction points in your timelines. An example would be when asking students to share their screens with the group, it could take up to 30 seconds depending on bandwidth.
• When instructing give lots of affirmation. Helping students with self-efficacy in the digital learning environment is important as it is harder to track wallflowers – anything to help establish safe learning environment and encourage participation.
• Ensure the students have a way to provide feedback for instruction, methods, media, etc. and make timely improvements to continue to provide the best experience for the students.

Flipped Classroom Approach: Blended teaching method where students are introduced to content prior to being taught the lesson, then practice working through it as part of the lesson during the course.  This approach provides face-to-face interaction and increased student/teach engagement because students are pre-exposed to the lesson material by conducting independent study (e.g. homework, videos) and are more prepared to ask and answer questions related to the material.

Things to consider:

• This is a more advanced teaching methodology so instructors need to ensure proper lesson preparation
• Leverage innovation and creativity when assigning the independent study
• Use different instructional techniques to keep students actively engaged (Guided Discussion, Peer-to-Peer Socratic Questioning)

Acronym A.C.E.

• Awareness: illuminate current and potential audience.
  • Post upcoming calendar events in brief detail
  • Space posts over a period of time throughout the day
• Conversation: interact with current audience.
  • Create a checks and balances system to what is posted
  • Create a “From the Office” daily posting
  • Respond to comments and provide feedback where appropriate
• Engagement: interact with content.
  • Tag other available sites
  • Create hashtag(s) and use other appropriate hashtags in posts
  • Solicit input from staff