Professional Development 201: From Basic to Dynamic

Activity 4: The Webinar

It is webinar day for the Training Development Group. The focus of today's webinar is to facilitate a discussion about a specific topic among participants. Tyrese, the facilitator, is working to encourage active involvement and provide opportunities to apply learning throughout the webinar. Amy, the producer, is working behind the scenes on webinar logistics.

There are distinctions between trainers and facilitators. As the webinar facilitator, Tyrese will not operate from specific outcomes. Instead, he will facilitate a discussion where participants start with information about a topic and work toward an outcome. To achieve the best results, Tyrese needs to:

Direct learning, give information, and move from the unknown to the known
Encourage participants to express their views, guide the interaction, and move from the unknown to the known
Move from the known to the unknown, guide the interaction, and direct learning

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As a facilitator, Tyrese will be guiding interaction rather than directing learning.

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As a facilitator, these are the actions Tyrese needs to take.

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As a facilitator, Tyrese will be guiding participants to move from the unknown to the known.

Amy reviewed the webinar preparations checklist and felt ready to initiate the webinar session. She had scheduled a conference room in a quiet location to record the session. There was a wireless Internet connection and a built-in microphone on the computer in the room. The presentation slides were uploaded. Amy used the whiteboard to share an introductory slide with flashing text in yellow font, "Please stand by. The session will begin shortly." How could Amy have improved upon her preparations?

There was nothing else Amy could have done to improve upon her preparations. She was well prepared and made appropriate decisions for the location, equipment, and platform features.
Amy should have used a landline with a telephone headset. She should have avoided gratuitous animation and difficult-to-read font colors in the introductory slide. She missed an opportunity to use a soft opener activity to acquaint the participants with the technology.
Amy should have selected a different location that would provide background noise for the recording. She should have used a superior microphone instead of the built-in unit on the computer. She should have displayed a preview of all the presentation slides.

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While Amy made good decisions about the location and platform feature she chose, there were other steps she could have taken to improve upon her preparations.

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These are all steps Amy could have taken to improve upon her preparations.

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The webinar recording could have been compromised had Amy chosen a location with background noise. Additionally, there would be no advantage to displaying a preview of all the presentation slides.

Amy logged into the meeting room, and Tyrese began the webinar at the top of the hour as scheduled. He soon noticed that very few participants had logged on, so he made an announcement that he would wait five minutes before getting started with the topic discussion. How did this cause audience engagement to suffer?

Those who had arrived on time were likely to become distracted by other tasks
Punctuality was not rewarded
All of the above

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While it is true that waiting for others made it likely that those who arrived on time would become distracted, there were other consequences as well.

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While it is true that punctuality was not rewarded, there were other consequences as well.

Correct!

Tyrese's decision to wait five minutes caused audience engagement to suffer from distractions. Not rewarding their punctuality could be demotivating.

Eventually, more participants logged into the meeting room, and Tyrese facilitated a dialogue among the participants after Amy opened the phone lines. A lively discussion ensued, and the webinar dissolved into a garbled session with too many people talking at once. How could Tyrese have controlled the situation?

He could have started the session with some guidance on audience participation to appear more organized and maintain credibility
He could have interrupted the conversation to maintain control
He could have utilized one of the interactive tools of the webinar platform to get the participants involved in another activity

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Tyrese could have better controlled the situation by starting the session with some guidance on audience participation.

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Interrupting the conversation might have been effective had it been a side conversation between two participants.

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Involving the participants in another activity would have disrupted the flow of the webinar as stated in the agenda.

Several participants asked questions that were not related to the discussion topic throughout the webinar. Tyrese spent several minutes answering an off-topic question in detail. Amy saw he was beginning to lose the rest of the participants when she saw a downturn on the engagement meter on the producer screen. How could this have been avoided?

Tyrese could have ignored the off-topic questions and redirected the audience to the main content
Tyrese could have provided an abbreviated response and hope that would be enough to satisfy the participant
Tyrese could have used a "parking lot" to store questions and discussion that might distract from the main content

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Ignoring the questions could have demotivated participants.

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Providing abbreviated responses could have demotivated participants.

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A parking lot would have been a useful tool to store and track items to be addressed later.

Continue to After the Webinar

Professional Development 201: From Basic to Dynamic

Activity 4: The Webinar

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