Listserv

Setting up an email listserv is possible if you are part of a large organization or consortium that has an e-mail client with this capability. If you are not, there is free software available for downloading that will provide this capability. Paid software is also available. Once the list is set up, you and the participants may post items of interest, issues and topics for discussion to the list. There are advantages to using a listserv to keep in contact, one being that messages are delivered to the subscriber’s inbox and they see at least the subject line and will proceed to read the message if their interest is peaked. Messages can be grouped into a digest or filtered by the user into a folder for later reading so the intrusiveness factor can be controlled by the recipient. Another advantage is that you only need to post a message when you have something to say; a web presence needs to be updated on a regular basis or it will appear outdated. Even if you do not have the software or are tech-savvy enough to set one up, a simple e-mail distribution list can suffice. Disadvantages to an e-mail listserv discussion are keeping track of the tread of discussion and also having people ‘reply to all’ on the e-mail if you are using a simple email distribution list. Long and popular discussion threads can become quite drawn out and hard to follow when many people are posting at the same time.

E-newsletters

E-newsletters are simply newsletters delivered to various recipients via e-mail. There are several free programs available for downloading, or you could produce a version as a word processing document and send it to your list via email. The main advantage to an e-newsletter is that it can be produced and sent for free to as many people as you wish. As with listserv messages, the recipient has the choice to view or discard the email, so the level of intrusiveness is low. Depending how often you might wish to reach out to the training participants, you may not have enough information to fill a newsletter on a regular basis, so the document may appear to be repetitive or forced full of information. Also, you lose any possibility of the recipients being able to begin a discussion amongst themselves as the newsletter is static with no area for a discussion. You could invite the participants to send in questions/ideas for topics in future newsletters, but any immediate interaction between them is not possible.

Blogs and wikis

Blogs and wikis are basically websites that are easily designed and updated by the average computer user. Several free services are available to design and host your webpage. Getting started is quite easy and updating is truly a breeze. Participants can submit a comment to any posting and it either gets posted immediately or waits for approval from you (as the owner of the blog). The ability for the participants to interact with you and each other is high and even novice computer users do not have problems successfully posting comments. There are, however, a couple of disadvantages to using blogs and wikis. They are readily available on the World Wide Web, so not only can anyone see the discussions, the participants may again fear recrimination by their supervisor and therefore might not speak freely in the discussions. And here again you have the issue of content; if you don’t update or produce new content on a regular basis, the page quickly becomes stale and eventually your participants will stop coming to the page. Lastly, and perhaps most important – this is yet another place the participant needs to visit to obtain updated information or assistance. With the listserv and the e-newsletter the information is delivered to them, eliminating the need to remember to go elsewhere.

Online discussion groups

Online discussion groups can be formed in various software platforms the most common being Google, Yahoo! and Facebook. All will have similar functions, such as being able to post topics for discussion, allow participants to post answers and pose new queries, and allow for mass email to be sent to all members. Some will allow document sharing and posting of pictures, so it might be best to think about in what direction(s) you want the group to head before deciding upon a software platform. Facebook has the disadvantage of needing participants to have a Facebook account to give them access to the group. While it may be hard to fathom, there still are some people that do not have a Facebook account, nor do they want one. Most other software simply requires the members of the group to have some sort of email account. All systems will obtain and keep on file some personal information on each participant (mainly name and email address) so this is also something to consider if you are thinking of starting a group for your training participants.

There are numerous online means of keeping connected with the past participants of your training sessions. This can be advantageous for any number of reasons, but keeping them moving forward on the concepts presented and learned in the training session is the most important. The amount of work required to set up and maintain a connection can vary, so looking carefully at the different options is definitely something that should be done. Whatever method is chosen, you will have the problem common to all methods: How do I get people to read and react to what I’ve sent/posted? The answer is not an easy one because it may differ from person to person and course to course, but as a general rule keep your posts/emails short, sweet and to the point. Use words that will catch people’s interest in titles, subject lines, and other prominent areas. Once you have peaked their interest, perhaps they will at least scan through the entire posting/ email and may even post a reply.

While this discussion presents a dark view of participants’ reaction to your reconnection with them following the training sessions, most likely this will be far from the actual reaction. Most participants are very happy with their trainers and actually enjoy hearing from them post-training. They will remember the sessions and the key concepts presented and learned, so you have done well in your job as their trainer and can rest assured that this is the case – even if they do not answer.

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