IN THIS CHAPTER

Identifying practical ways to engage virtual participants early

Using the time prior to your virtual session effectively

I often ask participants to sign on for virtual training ten minutes early to ensure that they can get a connection. Your participants sign on, their equipment checks out as “all systems go,” they say hi to you, and then what? Most likely, learners say to themselves, “Gosh! Ten minutes to get something done! Wow! Let’s see what I can do.” They look around their desks to find something they can check off their to-do lists. Perhaps they open email (even though you’ve asked them to close it) and begin to respond to new correspondence. Of course, 30 seconds before the class starts they’ve started a response, are on a roll, and just want to finish it. You start the session with less than everyone’s full attention.

What to do? How can you encourage them to continue to sign in early and keep them interested in what’s on their screens instead of what’s on their desks? And wouldn’t it be nice if there was a bonus? How about getting learners involved and participating early? Yes. That’ll do it.

The ideas presented in this chapter include ten quick ways to effectively use the ten minutes between sign-in and the actual beginning of a virtual classroom. Some are easy to do; some take a little more preparation. The ideas here are meant to entertain, teach, and engage your participants right from the start.

You can certainly have the typical slide up that tells participants what to do while they’re waiting to start — for example, give the phone number and code to join the audio portion, ensure that they’ve printed the participant materials, and provide a number to call if they’re having difficulty. But you can also get them engaged early by introducing a pre-session warm-up.

Use a different warm-up for each class. Most of the warm-ups in this chapter are quite easy and quick to put together. Soon you will have everyone signing on early just to see what you have created for them each time!

Someone Once Said

Quotation websites are abundant on the Internet. Use one to identify a couple dozen quotes that are related to your topic. Place each quote along with the person who said or wrote it on a separate slide. Add a few graphics, pictures or images and you have a display that’s related to your topic. Display the slides on a continuous loop with appropriate pauses. The slide show should provoke interest and entertain for at least ten minutes.

You can use the quotes to transition into the topic of the virtual session by asking, “Which quote resonates with you as it relates to our topic today?” Don’t be surprised if participants ask whether you can make the slide show available to them. I do this in my physical classroom and always receive a request or two.

As an alternative, you could just post one quote and ask participants to post their thoughts in the chat about the quote and how it relates to the class content.

Test Their Mettle

Create a ten-question quiz that relates to the topic — even vaguely. Pose the questions in a funny, outlandish, or unusual way to get people to break into a smile and stay focused. For example, in a class about strategies to manage globalization, you could pose this true-or-false statement: “The English invented champagne.” Add several more unknown facts and you have something that will grab their attention.

You can also encourage participants’ creative thinking. You can use brainteasers that may or may not be related to the content. Ask if they can figure them out. For example:

• What do these letters mean? ALPALPALP
• What’s unique about these numbers? 8,549,176,320

You can joke later that correct answers are part of their grade for the class. By the way, the answer to the true-or-false question is true. In the 16th century, English entrepreneurs imported batches of spoiled wine from the French area of Champagne. As recorded by the British Royal Society in 1662, they added sugar and molasses to ferment and flavor it. As for the brainteasers, ALPALPALP means “friends in high places” (a play on the words “pal” and “alp”). The number includes one of each numeral from 1 to 10, placed in alphabetical order (when spelled out using letters).

Chat Away

Post a controversial or debatable statement on the screen. Share how to use the chat feature and invite (via posted directions) participants to respond.

For example, if you’re teaching a teamwork class, you can post a debatable statement such as, “A team needs a strong leader, even if the leader intimidates some team members.” Yes, on first read it does seem to be a false statement. Team leaders should not intimidate team members. Yet as wrong as that may sound, there is another side to the statement. Have you ever met someone who was intimidated by everyone? Easily intimidated people need to go halfway and become comfortable with speaking up. The second controversial word in the statement is strong. How you define strong depends on your background and experience. Some people see strong as positive; that is, someone who is able to handle any problem with ease or who is strong enough to share the recognition but accepts most of the responsibility when things go wrong.

Well, this section isn’t about learning team dynamics, but the example should get you to think of others like it that are related to your subjects and areas of expertise. Again, you can refer to this exercise at the appropriate time during your session.

Expect Expectations

Ask participants to address one of the topics that is usually covered in the opening of any classroom:

• What ground rules do you suggest for our team?
• What are your expectations and hopes for this class?
• What do you want to know about the other participants?
• What questions about the content do you have?

Tell participants to capture their ideas in the chat feature. Open the session by referencing several of the comments and sharing your own input. You could also have participants list their ideas on the whiteboard. Later, you can toggle back to the whiteboard to remind participants of the question and their responses.

At the Movies

Create a couple of short video clips related to the topic of the session and play them on a continuous loop. Ideally, they are clips that you can reference during your presentation. Time permitting, you can also video several leaders in your organization who discuss the value of the learning to the organization.

No time to record a video of your own? Post a website URL on the screen that directs participants to use their smartphones or tablets to view a video on the Internet, such as from TED Talks or similar sites.

Going Live

There are many reasons why you may not choose to use the webcam during your virtual session, but you may want to consider it during the warm-up. As each person logs in, greet them and, if possible, add a comment about them that’s complimentary or informative to the rest of the group. If you are a virtual trainer who posts your picture on an opening slide, surprise your participants with a live greeting for a change.

Vote Early, Vote Often

Pose a poll question and ask participants to respond to it. It could be something that asks participants to rate their level of knowledge on a continuum. You could add some humor, such as

1. I’m a star, I know it all.
2. I’m pretty darn average.
3. Wait, what topic? What class is this?

You could also present a poll that asks about participants’ opinions of the session or rates how much they think it’s needed. When you reach the appropriate place in the session, post the results of the poll and open the discussion for comments.

Show Me the Picture

If your group will meet several times, it’s worthwhile to ask them to send you a picture of themselves (maybe encourage them to send something “in action” or “at work”). Post it with a couple of fun facts about each person. For example, “This is Georgianna, who has worked at the company for six years; she likes to play guitar and read science fiction.” You could also collect screen shots of each person or take a group photo.

Post the information on slides and use the continuous loop feature.

How Was the Homework?

Most of your virtual classes will have some sort of prework. Invite participants to comment either verbally or in the chat about the homework. If you do this verbally (or do any of these pre-session warm-ups), be prepared to help them bring closure before the session actually starts. Perhaps you’ll need to say something like, “Let’s hear one last comment before we start our session.”

Annotate It

Encourage participants to use the whiteboard and annotation tools to respond in a variety of ways. These suggestions will get you started:

• Post a graphic of a map (the world or country) and have participants annotate where they are located.
• Draw a standard 2-x-2 grid and have participants complete the information requested. For example, if you’re following up with a communication styles workshop such as DiSC, ask them to add their name to the quadrant that matches their style.
• Post a timeline and have participants place their name on the line indicating how much experience they have — for example, “How many years have you been a supervisor?”
• Post a picture or cartoon character in each quadrant and ask participants to place an X in the quadrant that best represents them and their relationship to the topic. For example, in a time-management workshop, you can have pictures of a beaver, rabbit, rhinoceros, and a hamster on a wheel. Ask which animal best represents time management for you. If participants have been together in the past and it would not seem too risky, you could ask them to sign their name in the corresponding quadrant.