17 Jan 2023

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What are the challenges in a VILT course?

VILT might be a cost-effective proposition for companies because so many employees don’t have to be assembled at the same place. They get taught virtually, and anyone can come other than arranging a venue for them. Apart from not arranging a venue, the organizations are also saved from the hassles of arranging accommodations for traveling students and teachers. This is advantageous for the company.

There is also a work-life balance for employees because their time to travel to the training venue is eliminated. They can easily attend the training from any place.

But since the employees are logged in from their homes, they can also get distracted by family members. There could be guests arriving at their homes and children who want their parents’ attention.

These are the ways in which the problems of a VILT session can be mitigated:

Onus on teachers:

So it’s the teacher’s responsibility to ensure employees concentrate completely during VILT sessions. The trainers can ensure that the employees turn their cameras on during work. If they don’t, they can be during other activities during the session.An employee can mute himself, turn the camera off, and do something else while attending the session.

The trainers can also ask employees questions to know whether he is present or not. The trainer should also include games and polls so that the learners don’t feel bored in the sessions. Instead of lecturing the learners, the documents should be used in teaching them. They can be explained with the help of a whiteboard where the teacher can draw on them. This way, the learners feel engaged throughout the session.

Another way is to use infographics that contain the information in brief. Even animated videos shown during a webinar/VILT session are a better way to get the learner’s attention.

VILT should not be long sessions because this way, the learners’ attention can deviate.

Hence it’s better to have short sessions.

A trainer must be best prepared for the session and know the learners’ first names. If the trainer feels that the learner is not paying any attention, then he should be asked to explain all the concepts to the whole group. This is known as the teach-back option.

The organizations also have much software, allowing them to easily manage employees for such webinars. They can notify them in time and also schedule the trainers.

Companies’ Responsibilities:

VILT allows you to deal with a colossal workforce living in distinct parts of the world. They can’t reach the venue at the same time due to traffic and other constraints. But can definitely attend the webinars.

However, VILT does not do away with the difference of time zones, and learners have to attend the session even if there is a night in their country.

If the learners don’t feel they have the best possible concentration during a certain time interval, they can watch the recorded session.

Although the learners might be willing to take the lessons in different time zones, this may lead to a compromise in their quality of work due to lack of sleep. Hence it’s the company’s job to ensure that such learners can log in late for work if they have attended a VILT at night.

If still, it’s not feasible, then the company must be willing to provide housing arrangements for those who have to travel to another time session.

Conduct sessions in the UCT (Universal coordinated time):

It’s also better that sessions are conducted in different time zones for both kinds of participants. The native and the foreign participants should have VILT sessions conducted at their convenience. This is only possible when the participants are willing to collaborate with one another.

Instead of using the IST or the EST for holding such sessions, it’s better to use the universal coordinated time. Using such time is better because it does not mean sacrificing any sleep for both kinds of participants, i.e., those living on either side of the equator. Therefore, attending sessions per the UTC is feasible for all participants.

Also, all participants should be ready for the VILT session because if they are not, it means explaining things to them. This means wasting the valuable time of the other participants who might have to leave for a business meeting after attending the VILT session.

20 Jun 2022

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What is the role of a moderator in a VILT session?

All over the world, the VILT sessions are happening at a rampant pace. It’s an aftermath of the pandemic, but conducting such sessions is not easy. The companies were looking forward to changing to the virtual training method due to the excessive costs of classroom-based training. But the change has been expedited by the pandemic.

Gen Z also cannot concentrate in-classroom training sessions and prefers VILT sessions where they can log in at a preferred time. It’s because it’s easier to focus when you are alone rather than with others in a classroom.

What is so peculiar about VILT that such sessions require both a trainer and a moderator?

Participants are not face-to-face:

The biggest loophole of a VILT session is that since the cameras of the attendees are off during such sessions, the trainer can’t see their facial expressions. Such expressions help trainers understand the difficulties of a learner. Hence, there can be a major communication gap between the VILT instructor and the participants, which the moderator bridges.

Hence, if the trainer does not know that his teaching speed is not acceptable for the attendees, there is a cognitive overload, i.e. too much information gets passed on to the learners in a short time.

The problem of not seeing attendees’ faces is a huge obstacle in synchronous VILT sessions to result-oriented communication.

It’s because, in such sessions, the trainers and students have taken out time from their over-packed schedules, and when they cannot comprehend each other, it is futile.

Helps the trainer in preparing for the session

It’s because there can be problems with a VILT session when large uploads are happening at the teacher’s end. The internet speed can get slow when live screen-sharing happens because, during this process, a stream of your video gets sent to the server from where the browser downloads it to the learners’ PC. Internet content upload speed is slower than the download speed. Hence during screen-sharing, the quality of the video call is average.

So it is better that if software screencasts are getting sent to the learners during the session, it’s better to record them beforehand rather than during the class. A moderator can help the trainer in recording a screencast video before the VILT session.

A moderator is someone who helps the trainer but is he required so essentially in the VILT sessions.

These are some situations that can arise during a VILT session for which the moderator’s help is needed:

The trainer can’t handle large sessions:

Another loophole in such a session is that sometimes trainers get nervous in large sessions and face technical issues.

For example, the learners might be unable to log into the meeting URL through their browser. So, they might send the trainer a message to resolve this problem. When so many participants send chats to the trainer, it’s tough for him to respond. That’s where a moderator helps to facilitate and responds to the learners’ confusion.

The moderator can access the meeting through a remote desktop and has no problems responding to the participants. A moderator must be an experienced IT person so that he can solve any technical glitches in time when a participant can’t access the VILT meeting URL through his web browser because it’s not compatible; the moderator can help him rectify the situation by switching to a different browser.

For example, the internet explorer is an outdated browser that does not work with web versions of the video conferencing software.

Preventing anyone from creating a nuisance during the meeting:

It’s a tough task to manage participants in remote learning sessions because sometimes, they may share some unwanted content.

Hence, a moderator can help the VILT trainer prevent the participants from sharing their screens if they send irrelevant content.

The moderator makes sure that such a participant is removed from the meeting. A remote moderator can immediately do this task for the trainer. So, the moderator can help the trainer block such a participant or change the options where no one can share screens except the host.

Makes sure that the trainer is not disturbed:

It can be ensured that the trainer is unaware when any participant leaves the meeting due to the lack of any notification because the settings can be enabled for the same.

However, the moderator calls the participant to enquire why he has left the meeting. A moderator can also mute a participant if he starts speaking between lectures. They can mute and unmute participants when needed based on whether they are talking about anything pertinent. If a participant is not allowing others to express their opinions, he can be muted.

Preventing latecomers to the meetings:

Moderators can also lock meetings to ensure that nobody unknown joins the meeting or any employee joins after a certain time. The meetings can be locked since they begin or after a certain delay after their beginning. This can help prevent any late entrants to a meeting.

In the end, the moderators allow the meetings to go unhindered, save the trainer from solving any technical and human problems, and focus on his topic during the session.

01 Dec 2021

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Why does a company need training management software?

The offices are focusing on providing the best of training opportunities to employees. It’s not easy given that employees are now working in a hybrid model. Employees still prefer to stay at homes, living ideal lives. These are the reasons how a company can get the best out of its training?

Ensure blended learning

Thus, in that case, blended learning where employees get some time to interact with the trainers is also feasible during their work from office schedule. The sessions with trainers can be booked, and a training management system(TMS) allows you to do that feasibly. The trainers need rooms when they come to a company to teach. Hence, it’s the job of the company to correspond with them and ensure that all the attendees have been notified in time.

Thus, the employees can be sent reminder emails about an instructor-led training session through a training management software.

They can also be sent surveys to gather their opinion about whether they felt the instructor was effective or not.
So, this kind of software is a must for a corporate training institute that can also use it to attract more customers.

Capitalize on leads! No wastage of time in responding to them

A training management system ensures that the prospective leads are sent emails on time about any upcoming courses. If anyone of them has applied for a course via the site then his contact details are added to the TMS which also contains a CRM. Hence, customers can also make online payments for a session, and then attend classes. Moreover, the learners can be informed if the training gets delayed to the unavailability of the trainer and new days have been allotted. It’s a practical thing to do when they have heard a lot of positive things about a trainer and want to attend his classes. It’s only beneficial for a business when it has to conduct seminars quite often and does not want any employee to miss them ignorantly. Although a training management system allows a business to conduct online classes also the learners can’t access any e-learning content through it. Worst of all, the instructional designers can’t create content on it because it does not have any e-learning content templates. The training management system is not even integrated with video conferencing software so that the VILT sessions can be scheduled through it.

Reduce the work of HR in sending emails to trainers

This kind of software is a requirement for the training centers of business, where the HR has to handle all the responsibilities when a nationwide seminar has been organized. The delegates have to be contacted for delivering the lectures and their availability has to be confirmed. Due to miscommunication, the learners could waste time because they didn’t know about the postponement of scheduled classes.

Sometimes missing such training can prove to be expensive for companies if they were safety training mandatory to be attended by employees before starting work. For example, if employees are supposed to attend OSHA mandated training by safety instructors, then missing it can be problematic because such sessions can’t be scheduled again.

The training management software also seniors to keep track of those employees whose certifications are expiring because new laws have come into place. They can also have control over the training budget of the company because if some trainer is not yielding results, then he/she won’t be hired again.

A company should opt for an LMS-based training management system so that online classes can be scheduled along with the hosting of the e-learning content.

The companies can also regulate the training and ensure that it delivers the intended results, otherwise it does not deserve the budget. So the employees can be assigned courses as per their skills gaps which arise due to changing job requirements.

17 Sep 2021

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How to make VILT more interesting?

Elearning companies in the US have been quite instrumental in the pandemic. Its because the workers started doing their work remotely, which had an impact on the learning strategy for companies. Employee training has assumed so much priority to reduce absenteeism caused by a lack of work-related skills.

The training delivery is a tough decision for companies because they have to hire facilitators’ for virtual instructor-led training (VILT).

However, apart from using facilitation, such training can be made more interesting in the following ways.

A very important technique used in this regard is the breakout groups. It leads to a higher user engagement because the learners are assigned to groups during the video conferencing call. The group is then given a challenge they have to tackle. For creating breakout groups, the host needs to send an invite to the participants. If they decide to click on Join, they become a part of the breakout group.

Break out Rooms

Breakout Rooms are useful so that participants are segregated into groups, where the host can see only the room screen instead of their individual member’s screen. The participants in such breakout rooms can see each other’s screens and chat about a topic. The host of the video-conferencing call only has the option to close or open such rooms or he/she can set a timer for the rooms to be closed. So when you want to see each participant’s screen and address them for the consecutive lesson, it’s important to close a room.

Such virtual groups help participants get unusual ideas through brainstorming sessions. Brainstorming is useful when you want to get unique ideas from team members who belong to different departments because they might have a distinct opinion about the work.

Another engaging brainstorming method is co-annotation.

Interactive brainstorming session with co-annotation in Zoom

Zoom has an Annotate option where you can draw and write as much on your screen or their screen while the participants are watching you. Although the participants can’t write on such a shared screen without co-annotation, you can write on their behalf, their ideas during a brainstorming session. For example, you can open a Word document on your screen and click the share screen option and then Annotate. Instead of opening a word document; you can click on the share screen option and then click on the Whiteboard. You can decide the annotation preferences, whether the other participants in the group will be able to write on the whiteboard screen, by clicking on the Enable/Disable Annotation for Others settings in Zoom call. The feature to let other participants Annotate on the shared screen or on the whiteboard is only possible for all participants or for none at all.

You can also see who is annotating by enabling the show/hide names of annotators option.

There are many annotation tools present like drawing, spotlight, eraser, select an annotation. Under the spotlight feature, when you drag your mouse to a certain part of the screen, it is shown to other participants.

This is how you can make VILT more interesting.

22 Jun 2021

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How to deliver virtual training for effective results?

Elearning has become the most urgent need for companies these days. Companies are promoting high-end employee development through it.

LMS portal is now implemented by every company. They need to share the content on it to promote it throughout the organization.

Companies can use the services of subject matter experts for training employees through webinars arranged through video conferencing tools of an LMS. But, they do not know teaching skills. That’s where it becomes a problem because they might not know how to connect with an audience. Virtual training is an unexplored domain for subject matter experts.

Professional trainers on the other hand can deal with the fundamentals of VILT training. They know how to read the body language of the target audience and all. That’s why companies should look forward to imparting training through professional instructors even if it is virtual.

Hiring professional virtual training experts through managed learning partners means that you don’t put the entire pressure on the learning and development teams of your company.

It is because such partners also provide eLearning creation, so your internal resources are freed. The companies have varied training needs. First, virtual training is delivered in a department in a single branch only. Then, it’s extended to cover different branches also and gets a nationwide reach wherever the company has its presence.

So, whenever the needs for training are high, the organizations can ask the managed learning partners to provide them with more resources without hiring anyone themselves. Hiring trainers through a managed learning partner means that you can get them to travel anywhere which internal trainers might not be willing to do.

The trainers hired through managed learning partners have been chosen through careful screening. So, they know their job well.

Train the SMEs

Also, subject matter experts might not have much idea about how to use a virtual training tool like Zoom, etc. For this reason, also, the companies can get help from the managed learning partners. They can provide training assistance to the subject matter experts so that they yield better results.

Help with onboarding

You can easily manage onboarding through such managed learning partners. Onboarding is a critical process for a company that requires huge work. The employees must have the best experience during onboarding because they will remember this during their tenure in the company. The managed learning partners have an organized process for onboarding. This reduces the burden of the internal teams.

The business can ensure that they can have more resilience when they outsource training. The business can get rid of any kind of training gaps the employees have because new technology gets tough to learn for them.

There is also the consideration of employees. The employees who want professional development can indeed be helped; everybody is not interested in skill enhancement. The business should motivate such employees for skill development to reach the top and also get the maximum return from its managed learning partner.

The managed learning services partner should also be informed of the way employees like to learn and at what pace. When such a provider learns about your company values they can deliver a better outcome.

These points can be kept in mind while hiring a managed learning partner:

What your employees want: So, if your employees can want eLearning platforms where the content is uploaded for them. They can also desire a blended learning approach where some virtual training is there and the rest of the content is through eLearning where they study on their own. This is how companies can ask the managed learning partner to provide them with a customized solution.

The company culture: It’s also important to check the content of the managed learning partner because it is quite crucial. The managed earning partner should know the culture of the client to know how the content is to be written because the employees can ask for formal and informal language.

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