In my book, The Synchronous Trainer's Survival Guide, I discussed in detail the specialized set of facilitation and delivery skills required to effectively teach in a live online (a.k.a. "synchronous") environment. Being able to communicate without body language and eye contact can be very challenging for a trainer accustomed to the traditional stand-up environment, and developing the skills necessary to master the synchronous classroom takes time and practice.
I also discussed the need for giving participants new skills so that they can also be successful in the online environment. How should they behave? How should they communicate? What should they expect?
So, in essence, the Survival Guide was focused on the behaviors and characteristics of the key actors on the virtual classroom stage—the trainer, the assistant trainer, and the participant. Looking back, I feel as if I "put the chicken before the egg." While it's fine to talk about how to interact successfully, shouldn't we first ascertain whether the participants have an environment in which they can learn and that the trainer is delivering content that is engaging and instructionally sound?
This introduces a new set of issues—specifically, questions dealing with instructional design and appropriate tool usage. This book, Live and Online! Tips, Techniques, and Ready-to-Use Activities for the Virtual Classroom, will discuss creating effective environments in which participants can be engaged and instructionally sound exercises that allow geographically dispersed participants to collaborate, interact, and, most importantly, to learn.
Why a book specifically focused on creating collaborative synchronous exercises? That's an easy question—because it was needed. Attention so far has been focused on the point and click of the technology and individual tools. (You can do "this" with application sharing and "that" with the white-board.... blah blah blah....) There has not been a lot of attention paid to the instructional uses of the tools. I was frustrated with seeing tools under-exploited. With just a little bit of creativity and the application of instructional design, programs can be much more interactive and collaborative. Interactive and collaborative programs help people to learn. Technology just provides the tools that facilitate this process. This book is just an early step in establishing models and best practices for synchronous exercise design and effective synchronous programs.