Can you see my screen?

Can you hear me ok? Do you see my screen? I think you might be on mute. Sorry about the dog barking. This might be what your day consists of right now. If you do virtual learning on a regular basis you know what I am talking about. This isn’t your normal classroom conversation, it doesn’t start by asking the participants how their flight was, or drive into the site today, it’s different but it’s not impossible. I wanted to dedicate this blog to give all you new work from home or virtual experience leaders some of my thoughts and tips. I have been doing virtual learning for years now and when I get asked about this topic people say to me, oh that would be great, I bet the commute is awesome, and it must be so much easier. Well friends, it’s not and I have had to learn to change my style a lot over the years. Ok first, the experience itself. I heard this the other day, let’s just make this class virtual. I’m sorry but it is not a wave of a magic wand and boom it’s a virtual experience, typically what happens in a classroom does not work for a virtual classroom. Let talk slides, if you are using PowerPoint, it is important you look them over. You may need to add more context to your conversation on them, and you will need to reduce the overall size of the deck into strong chunks. I like to break some of my slides up more, a simple slide change in a virtual environment can bring your learners back in. You will have to make sure whatever you are showing on the screen is going to resonate even more with the learners, because other than your face this is all they see. Next your activities and examples, these have to stay! They are what makes your class so exciting, however you are going to have to do them differently. Your involvement (from my last blog) has to be at an all time high. You think people get distracted in the classroom, now try adding kids, pets, laundry, spouses, the refrigerator and it’s all over the computer, good bye audience! When you’re leading this experience whether its over Zoom, WebEx, Google Handouts whatever, you need to make sure everyone is present. Being on camera is a must, and that goes for everyone including yourself. In a classroom you should be reading peoples faces and seeing their reactions, well it is the same thing over the computer. “I don’t know what to do with my hands” Ricky Bobby Talladega Nights, this is always the first image I get when I am on camera, however most people are just sitting down in their office chair. I don’t know about you but I have never taught sitting down in an office chair before and when I lead my experiences I try not to as well. If you have the space, grab a piece of white paper or flip chart, a white board, your kids chalk board whatever you may have and stand up and show the learners what you are doing. See if you can even get them moving, maybe it’s a quick optional stretch, maybe its demonstrating safe lifting technics or effective ways to present a topic. Looking more at our activities, such as a team discussion, you may want to change that to an entire class discussion, or maybe you break the class into small teams and have them talk about this topic between sessions for homework. If your platform (Zoom etc.) has a chat feature you should utilize this a lot, especially when facilitating a discussion. You want to make sure everyone in the class is heard, so make sure to give them options to chime in. I always watch the amount of time in which I am talking, I think it’s important to make sure I am limiting how much they hear me, compared to the time they are interacting. It is easy to get on a call and just chat because silence on a Zoom meeting can get awkward, but its ok. You need to let the topic sink in and allow time for comments and questions. How about your fantastic group activity where everyone needs to go out and collaboratively complete a mission? Well this one you might need to tone back, or again have a small team do this after the session virtually before the next one. I love to connect the class outside the experience as much as possible. The more you can do things differently the easier the involvement piece will be. Class starts at 8:00 am and ends at 4:30 today, sounds familiar however for a virtual class that sounds exhausting. If I have to be on camera and virtual for 4 or 8 hours not only are you going to have learner fatigue but the retention at the end will be greatly decreased. I usually think to myself how long can I pay attention for when I watch a movie. For me any movie over the one and half hour or two-hour range, you have lost me. I build my experiences this way as well. If it’s an eight-hour class, let’s do three, one and a half hour sessions. Wait, Kevin your math is off, three times 1.5 is not eight, yes friends, I know so let’s talk about that. I know that my virtually classes cannot be the same time as in person classes, this is because I expect my learners to learn on their own as well as in the classroom with me. For example, I use our engagement technique even more than normal for a virtual class, I give them a lot more pre-learning to do so they come to the first session ready to roll. This could be objectives, like reading an article related to the class, maybe there is a procedure or program they need to review, how about a message board or group chat to introduce themselves. Then after session one, I expect that my learners will have homework, some sort of “go do”. An example would be having a phone call or virtual meeting with another learner in the class, I might have them physically do something, maybe they need to practice presenting a topic to their cat or dog. Whatever these filler activities are, make sure they are valuable, fun and it gets them ready for the next session or reflect on something from the prior. Finally, let’s address technology, for some of our learners working from home was something they never thought they would have to do or something they have never done. The only meetings they have ever had were in person with their fellow shift workers or coworkers in the office. It is important if you are going to do a virtual class you have to consider your audience. If possible, send out some instructions to make sure everyone knows how to get on, ask them to practice with a friend or loved one before the experience occurs. Your first session might not go as planned, be ready for that, add in the flex time in the beginning to make sure everyone is on all technology is working. Now if you and technology don’t tend to get along, that isn’t a problem, just like you would for a in person experience, PRACTICE, test it out. Most software allows you to go into an empty meeting and pretend like you are leading a real experience, check your camera view, your microphone, how the slides work, any additional audio or video, etc. Once you get started it is important to continue to check in with your audience, make sure every is on the same page and the experience is running smoothly. Just remember you can do this! Virtual learning is not easy but hey I say that about classroom learning as well. This should be a time where we are connecting with those that we don’t typically “see” and focusing on growing personally and together as a company. Its time to connect differently!

Three Ripples to take away! 1. Classroom format does not equal virtual format. You need to change it up and help your learners differently 2. No more eight-hour classes, in a virtual world smaller chunks lead to stronger involvement 3. Distractions can be overcome by what you do in your virtual learning space