If your organization has started offering virtual instructor-led training (VILT), you may be receiving calls for help from facilitators asking how to make those sessions fun and interactive.
Below, find seven fresh ideas to breathe life into remote training sessions and meetings.

1. Shorter Is Better:

First, rethink how to use time. When presenting remotely, shorter is better. We normally experience the world through our five senses, but in the virtual world, we’re limited to only two of our five senses: hearing and sight.
The best way, then, to grab and hold attention is to deliver content in short bursts of five to seven minutes.

2. Setting Expectations:

To ensure participants will engage with an activity, it’s important to set expectations for behavior at the beginning of the session. Your goal is to focus everyone’s eyes, ears and hands on your topic. 
Chat
For example, one function I use often is chat. During technical housekeeping, instruct participants to open the chat and type a short word or sentence into the window.
Questions that work well and build relationships are:

• How do you say “hello” in your mother tongue?
• Did you eat breakfast today? If so, what was it?
• What is the weather like today in your city?

As answers appear on the screen, read a few of them out loud, and add a personal comment of your own.

Virtual Applause
An additional way to use the chat feature is a technique called virtual applause, a visual substitution for clapping. Ask participants to type a stream of exclamation marks into the chat whenever they hear something they like or enjoy.
Several training managers who have introduced virtual applause to their team meetings have said it’s a great way to show appreciation for their colleagues.

Renaming
Another tactic to encourage participants to type within the first two minutes of the program is to ask them to rename themselves.
The point of technical housekeeping is to have attendees’ fingers on the keyboard — and not checking their email or doing other work.
It’s important to set expectations for behavior at the beginning of the session.
Once you’ve set expectations, begin your program. After the first five or six minutes, you’ll want to involve the learners again. Here are some additional ideas:

3. Finger Polling:

Many training managers and facilitators already use a polling feature within their platforms, and these tools work well to capture attention. However, if you aren’t polling as part of a survey for research purposes, a better activity is the finger poll. Finger polling gets people physically, as well as mentally, engaged with your topic.
Finger polling works best when there is a series of at least three questions. Keep track of who answers each question correctly, and then offer a prize for the winners.

4. Conversation Starters:

A proven way to reengage participants is to change what they see on the screen. Instruct participants to turn off their cameras for a moment, and let them know that you will ask them to turn them back on shortly. Then, ask a yes/no question relevant to your content.
5. Recruiting Volunteers
Your curriculum may require participants to demonstrate an activity. A quick, equitable and fun way to select a volunteer for an exercise is to use the online wheel of names. Type in participants’ names, and spin!

6. Annotation:

The annotation feature is one of the most creative features available in most platforms.

7. Don’t Train Alone:

Virtual sessions require three areas of competency: technology, pedagogy and subject matter expertise. It doesn’t matter how well designed the learning journey is or how compelling the content is; if participants are struggling with technology, the session will be a bust.
For this reason, I strongly suggest that every virtual program or meeting have one person dedicated to managing the platform and another to teaching the program.


Original Article Source: trainingindustry.com