How to turn your webinar in an endgame tool
It was the late 90s when we witnessed the birth of Internet-based education and the first application of distance learning using the Web. The expansion has been exponential since then, and the ICT has become a key-player in Education at any level (Ruiz et al., 2006; Gegenfurtner et al., 2019b; Testers et al., 2019). A large range of e-resources has been developed to support instructors and students to increase engagement, usability and improve the learning curve regardless of the content or area of knowledge. One of the rapidly rising star resources in e-learning is the webinars — erstwhile called a synchronous online course.
What is a webinar?
The rapid expansion of digitalization has transformed the way in which education is designed, implemented, delivered and assessed (Cook et al., 2008; Cuban, 2001; Margulieux, McCracken, & Catrambone, 2016; McKinney, 2017; Säljö, 2019; Siewiorek & Gegenfurtner, 2010; Siewiorek, Gegenfurtner, Lainema, Saarinen, & Lehtinen, 2013; Testers, Gegenfurtner, & Brand-Gruwel, 2015). Webinars are a go-to option from the wide-rage of e-learning resources; however, its term can vary from user to user.
In the following table are displayed some of the coined terms for activities related/similar to webinars and belong to an umbrella of e-learning resources:
The term webinar is then a neologism and portmanteau of the words web and seminar (Sciencedirect, 2019). Long-story-short, a webinar is a seminar that occurs online rather than in-person in a traditional classroom.
What does data say about webinars?
Either in Education or in the corporate field, users — lecturers/facilitators and students, there is a common trend on how satisfied they were participating in the webinar-based learning process (Cornelius & Gordon, 2013; Gegenfurtner et al., 2018; Kear et al., 2012; Wang & Hsu, 2008). However, we are talking about a wide range of learners. Within these statistics, we can include any learner from compulsory education (nursery or pre-school in some countries) to an up-skill trainee from senior management.
One of the things that stroke me the most of my incursion in the e-learning field was the amount of data that the tools were collecting. We are talking here about a very large spectrum of information, which goes from attendance to the number of seconds that a specific learner was not looking at the screen while the webinar was being displayed. Never before I had at my reach so much data that would allow me to better understand the impact of my sessions and further improve it.
In my previous job, I was part of a group of early-adopters who implemented blended-learning on a worldwide level. We are talking here about training, simultaneously, APAC, EMEA and AMER. I was a big thing, especially for first-timers, to use webinars on a broad and diverse audience without any previous data or feedback.
Did work? Yes. Was it perfect? No. Did I learn anything? Absolutely! Starting with the ability to identify key elements while developing and implementing a webinar.
Creating a webinar: things I have learned to have into account
Less is more: Microlearning
Based on my previous experience in business and data from other B2B solutions (ShiftLearning, 2018), most webinars have a length between 45 minutes and 60 minutes. When zooming into this data, the average viewing time of 22 minutes suggests that, even though the trend sets a benchmark, shorter webinars should be considered in the future to meet learners demands.
Microlearning seems to be the direction to take. Learning in bite-sized pieces makes the transfer of learning from the classroom to the desk 17% more efficient (ShiftLearning, 2018). When I implemented blended learning in a 5ECTS course in the International Business programme of Avans, I came up with the same results. Students prefer straight-forward, shorter videos rather than longer ones. Out of the three webinars produced, the largest engagement was found on an 8-minute long video compared to others with a length of 18–20 minutes.
Some observations would be:
- Shorter videos are more accessible. Learners can take it at their own pace, wherever they are, at any time, and most importantly when they are “ready.”
- Shorter webinars are more straight-forward. Learners have become more impatient and do not want to clutter their memories with -what they consider- irrelevant information. It increases engagement, therefore, also the retention.
- Less is more. By having less amount of content, it is easier to retain. This makes comprehension easier. Higher return on investment.
Ray Jimenez (2006), in his book 3-minute eLearning, highlighted that by creating micro-courses, learning developers can reduce development costs by 50% and increase the speed of development by 300%. Fourteen years later the release of its paper, I have observed that this number keeps growing and has a positive impact on the budget.
Golden rule: once per week
Research (Kim, 2018) shows that learners prefer one webinar per week per course. This implies that not all the content can be placed in this format and the design process must have this into account.
In my experience, this means that you cannot replace a lecturer/facilitator with a webinar. It does not work. And nobody in the learning process likes it. Therefore, to drive results, it shall be used wisely. Always have ready a point-of-contact or contact person that interacts with the students, either in a Q&A session live or via streaming. 92% of webinar attendees want a live question and answer session at the end of a webinar (BigMarker, 2017). People need to feel the connection with the rest of the stakeholders, to raise the group-belonging feeling and to have a platform to talk, debate, clarify and go deeper into the topic.
Too many webinars give the feeling of laziness while too less do not give the impression that they are an essential part of the learning process. The best and most effective combo? Record a few webinars, 3–4 minutes long, and pack them in a week. Right, create a playlist on a specific subject. It will help you cover the content, drive engagement and maintain the flexibility that your users are seeking and striving for.
Go visual
Big chunks of text? Slides and slides fulls of bullet points? Random pictures pasted on a template existing since PowerPoint 97?
Please. Just. Stop.
Today it’s all about high impact visual slides. Visual content is so incredibly powerful. Awesome visuals will keep your viewers engaged. Be memorable and entertaining (Mission.org, 2018).
Students want a smooth and appealing UX (User experience) and want to be visually attracted by the product they are consuming. Exactly, it is like going to the shop and feel attracted by the best package. Make sure that not just your content shines but your format does it too.
What happens if you are not a visual person yourself? Do you struggle with putting things together? Selecting a colour palette? Choosing a font? Nowadays, you do not need to be a graphic designer or hire somebody to help you do all this. You count with a number of free options online (Canva.com, Coolors.co, etc,) that can help you come up with a showstopper presentation in a short amount of time.
In my experience, this is a great solution for those who do not count with the skills, the time or both to build up their own personal brand. I have helped a large number of colleagues to elevate the content of their presentations by using these free-to-use tools and the final outcome was very good. In my case, I have invested in my own deck of slides that I use for my classes. Throughout my career, my material was always known as top-notch and makes your content shine and remain relevant. Guess what? People always remember my presentations, hence, they consumed the content. That is our ultimate goal.
Go big or go home
Do you plan on recording a single video (and that’s it)? Spoiler alert: that is a terrible idea. If we have learned something from Generation Z is that we live in a world of short attention spans. After 15–20 minutes, the attention slowly fades away our student is one the check-out queue — no matter how skilled and knowledgeable they are.
If you are afraid of losing your audience or have experienced it in the past, ask yourself if you are indeed implementing blended learning or simply recording a video. A course that takes the blended learning approach normally has a significant part of the learning process delivered in both a face-to-face classroom and online (Cotilla, 2019).
Create quizzes during or after the webinar, build up a community, discuss the content in a forum, keep the content alive. Feedbackfruits is a good example of a tool that can be implemented in the Education field and serve for all these purposes. Do you work in the corporate world? Workplace (by Facebook) can help you too.
I have used both tools to boost engagement, drive discussion and improve performance with flying colours. Who said that learning had to be boring?
Keep practising
Being in front of the camera can look easy, record a webinar in one-shot can be more challenging than it looks at first.
Let’s start with the first point; there are two types of people: those who feel comfortable in front of the camera, and those who prefer to be behind. I used to be in the second group: Awkward smiles, robotic expressions and an uncomfortable posture that will shine through the footage. How do you get over that? Practice, practice and practice. You can do this by yourself or with other people. There are no shortcuts rather than you getting acquainted with the camera. Start taking photos of yourself, play with the frame, the angle, the lighting. Make sure that you like the previous result — the rest can be retouched in post-production. If you love what you see before recording it, it will motivate you to be sharper during the recording session.
Prepare a good script. If you are proud of your content and you know that you have a consistent product, the only focus you shall have is to recite it correctly to the camera. Go through it a few times. Read it out loud. Highlight difficult words and say that part a few times. Combining these two tips you will perform better during the recording part. In my experience, it took me a few trials during the sound test to feel comfortable and lead me to record 20-minute long videos in one shot with a professional and self-confident pose.
Allow yourself to make mistakes during the video. Making mistakes is human. That happens frequently in live sessions. It makes the video feel more natural and relatable by seeing, what I all, glitches. In the end, be yourself. Your audience needs to feel a connection in you and there must be a resemblance of your webinar-you to your training-you.
Wrapping up
Webinars are not new. However, what makes a webinar shine is something that has been polished during the last decade. With blended learning, the learning process no longer belongs solely to the traditional classroom. On the other side of the spectrum, a webinar should not be used as a standalone product. It will not work, or will not do it in a mid-long term. Combine it with a wide range of tools if you want your audience to engage in the process and increase their learning curve.
Make them short. Compile them. Put them together in an organised way so the learners can feel attracted to the format and maximise the moments where they would feel ‘ready’ to learn. Too many or too less could have negative effects: or too overwhelming and chaotic or coming across as not relevant in the course as a whole.
Make. It. Fancy. Branding your webinar will assure you a higher engagement rate and will leave a good feeling in your student. They will be more open to the content and the motivation will be influenced positively throughout the course. You will be carrying them from webinar to webinar through great user experience. Nowadays, you do not need to be a visual guru to make it happen.
Practice and do not give up. Recording a webinar can be fun. Like, real fun! If you are not having fun, you are not doing it well. Education is a very rewarding profession. Make sure that you give yourself a chance to feel it while recording your sessions. I promise it is worth all the effort.
Have you ever recorded a webinar yourself? How did you implement blended learning having the webinar as one of the key elements of your formula? I would love to hear more from you in the comments below!
