What I learned from previous ED700 course

I took the ED700 Web Conferencing course this summer and I had a chance to apply to a project I am working on for a client some of what I learned. We are in the process of creating several online training courses for real estate professionals. We recently delivered our first course using GoToMeeting. The attendees were mostly unfamiliar with distance learning, with only 2 participants having taken an online course. Here’s some of our experiences:

• Simplify the content. The training was based on an existing face-to-face course and however great the course was, you should take the time to revise the content to fit in an e-learning environment. It was easy for the creators of the course to just present the slides the same way they were presented during F2F and failed to consider how participants will react in an online environment.
• When using powerpoint slides, make sure that the text are larger and bolder, the topic or contents presented in list and no more than 4 in a page. It is easy to lose the audience when there are so many lines to read while trying to listen to the presentor.
• Provide a summary or an outline at the beginning of the course to give the participants a heads up of what will be discussed
• Test the equipment/system and take the time to practice. There is nothing worse than spending time training time trying to fix something that could have been easily avoided with just the right preparation
• Encourage interaction from learners, both with your contents and with other participants. This is one of the most challenging parts of distance education because of the absence of other people face to face in a classroom.
• It is great when you can encourage participants to a lively discussion but keep in mind your role as a facilitator which includes the ability to cut the discussion or steer it back on topic. Also, be considerate of other’s schedules. Some people may have planned to spend only the allotted time for the course and therefore may need to leave, even in the middle of a lively, useful discussion.

These are just some of them and I am sure as we continue to create the next courses, we will encounter many more that would require me going back to my notes and reviewing what I learned from other EDTEC classes.