Part 1: Why and How
The landscape of the professional workplace has changed, and many companies are struggling to keep their employees trained in a virtual environment. How does a company with limited experience in distance learning keep their workforce informed? The answer for many companies is to conduct a live webinar, and sometimes this is a great solution. However, as with any training tool, it has its limitations and there are various ways to do it.
Webinars are great for delivering key messaging to a large group, presenting material onscreen, engaging your audience with discussion, question and answer sessions, and more. However, live webinars are also limited-time resources, with a small window of opportunity for attendance. Conducting multiple sessions to accommodate time zones may require resources you do not have.
How can companies manage the issues that single-use webinars present?
Why Should Webinars Be Converted into eLearning?
There are 3 main reasons a webinar should be converted into an eLearning:
- Scheduling
For many companies, the transition to a virtual environment has not been easy. Employees are having to manage a new, yet familiar environment, and finding the perfect time to take part in a webinar can be difficult. Even when providing multiple sessions of a given webinar on a set schedule, not everyone in a given audience may be available during those times. By converting a single webinar into an eLearning, your employees can access the information provided 24/7 based on their schedule.
- Resourcing
As with your audience, the subject matter experts delivering your webinars are also working in this new environment and may have limited time to conduct multiple webinars. Converting a single webinar into an eLearning frees up your resource(s) and allows for better time management.
- Messaging
If your company is fortunate enough to have multiple subject matter experts who can conduct several webinars, you still run the risk of inconsistent messaging. Converting a single webinar into an eLearning ensures a consistent message is delivered to your employees.
How Is It Done?
There are several ways a company can record a webinar. You can use built-in recording tools provided in conferencing systems or external screen-recording programs. Whichever option you select will work, as long as it can provide you with an output video file, such as AVI, MOV, FLV, or MPG.
Once you have access to your output file, determine both the amount of interactivity you want to include and if you want to conduct any tracking to when it is provided to your audience.
No Interaction and No Tracking
If you only want to make the training available to your audience to view at a time of their choosing, then you can simply post or embed your video file onto your company file sharing, and then provide users with the link for access.
Interaction, Tracking, or Both
You can add interactive components to the recorded webinar to recreate the discussion options of a normal presentation. You also may want to track who views the webinar. In that instance, you will need access to both rapid-development software such as Storyline 360 or Adobe Captivate, as well as a Learning Management System to host the converted webinar.
How Can Rapid-Development Tools be Used to Add Interactivity?
Once a recorded webinar is embedded into an eLearning course using a rapid-development tool, there are several ways to add interactivity. A few examples include:
Built-in question sections
By pausing or cutting the video at certain points, you can check for understanding with questions related to the content. It is even possible to create custom response fields in most rapid development tools, requiring the learner to input a free-form response rather than selecting from a list of multiple-choice options.
Surveys, both internal and external
Surveys can be a valuable tool for presenters during a webinar, and this tool can still be utilized when converting to eLearning. You can integrate survey questions into the eLearning itself, which most rapid-development tools provide. Or, give users a link to an external survey, such as SurveyMonkey, and then review survey results at specific intervals.
Active resource and links
Rapid-development eLearning software allows you to embed resource files, links, and other media along with your recorded webinar. For example, display a link to a company site on the video as it is being discussed. This allows users to open and bookmark it during the presentation. Or you can include all the documents referenced in a presentation in a specific resource section of the converted eLearning for easy download.
Interactions based on key concepts
If you feel users may struggle to understand key concepts without the help of presenter, you could enhance the recording by including custom interactions, examples, diagrams, FAQs, knowledge checks, and other media.
For next steps and tips, read Part 2 now!
Topics: Instructional Design, eLearning, Training and Facilitation, VILT, Working Remotely