I was speaking with someone a while ago about live online learning. They were commenting on a webinar they had attended: there were some positives, which I love hearing, and some criticism, which is annoying as I want live online sessions to be received well.

One point especially made me think. They said “the webinar was in Adobe connect. It’s not as interactive as Webex Training, they didn’t use green ticks to check understanding or anything.”

Can you imagine how this made my blood boil. Not from the person saying it, they are just highlighting their experience and don’t know that it’s not the fault of the platform.

The fault firmly lies with the person delivering the live online session.

IT’S NOT THE SOFTWARE — IT’S THE SKILLS!

Adobe Connect and Webex Training Centre have similar interaction and engagement tools – it’s all about how you use them. They are also broadly similar in approach to the virtual classroom, though Webex is more expensive and I don’t always recommend it now due to struggles in even trying to buy a licence, which you can read about here.

Not got the tech?

Even if a platform is lacking, perhaps there aren’t the emoticons for responses such as a green tick/check or a hand up, there’s often a chat window to use. A great facilitator will overcome the technology issue and ask for engagement through chat. Unless of course, that’s been switched off or isn’t present. Even then you can still overcome that, read more about that here.

Either way, it’s about us developing our skills to make sure we are doing the best job we can.

To help with that, we have loads of free resources, a free community, as well as a subscription for continuous professional development and courses we can run for teams.

What is something that you’ve heard about live online learning that make just made you sigh?