Before you hit the stage or your desk in an online setting, you’re putting a lot of time and effort into making your presentation look as professional and appealing as possible. Often, we are carefully considering which font and colours to use, which stock images fit the energy of the message, and how the language flows with what we have to say. And that’s good, but there are other visual elements of your presence to which we ought to give attention.

Elevate your dress code: Find confidence in clothing.

Have you ever bought a new outfit and felt like the cool kid in high school, ego-boosted and ready to embrace the spotlight? It doesn’t have to be a style makeover; it could be as simple as a new shirt or pair of shoes. Whatever your new item is, use it as a vessel to present the new you.

Levelling up your appearance can give you confidence from within and give your viewers a powerful and fresh first impression of you, even if it’s subconscious. Feeling (and...

Beta Testing

Hurrah! Your online course is complete!

So, now what?

The first thing to do once you have a completed course framework is to make sure that it all works and flows properly.  When it comes to online courses, you’re not only looking to make sure that it actually works, (the technology and software are functioning as desired), but you will also want to make sure that the content flows properly, makes sense to your target audience and yields the results you had intended and are promoting.

Although it can be tempting to launch right away, the benefits to testing before launch are plentiful and should be thoroughly considered.  

These include:

• The ability to understand how the flow of the course will work in real-time
• Seeing and reacting to actual results and transformations within your students
• Collecting testimonials or case studies suitable for launch and promotional messaging
• Understanding the degree of...

Part III - Production

In this third installment of our Creating an Online Course series, we’re going to be chatting all about the best practices for producing your content and then in Part IV, we will discuss how to incorporate beta testing models to ensure your course runs smoothly when it’s time to launch! 

If you haven’t yet read Part I and Part II of this series, we highly recommend going back and getting those under your belt first so the tips and tricks we chat about in this article make more sense.

Let’s hop right in!

So now that you’ve put all of the content together in a manner that flows properly and meets your learning outcomes, it is time to film, record, and edit your online course.

For many, this is the most intimidating phase of online course development. Depending on the nature of your course, this may include getting in front of the camera, which can be daunting for many.  

Before we get to filming though, let’s...

Part II - Facilitation

In Part I of this series, we discussed the boom of online learning, the benefits of challenges that most course creators and students face and the best practices for preparation and development of your course.

With those foundational pieces in mind, let’s talk about how to best facilitate your course material to ensure that you are delivering an inclusive, engagement-friendly, and educationally impactful experience for your learners.

Facilitation - How to Get Started

When it comes to the actual facilitation of your online course, there are a number of areas you are going to want to focus on, including:

• Securing the Tools of the Trade
• Creating a Comfortable and Inclusive Environment
• Outlining Clear Goals and Expectations
• Offering Behind the Scenes Support
• Fostering Participant Communication
• Including Opportunities for Engagement
• Facilitating Forward Movement

Within this article, we will go through each of these areas with recommendations on how to best...

Part I - Planning & Development

The Boom of Online Learning

As we all know, the last 2+ years have brought about many changes (read challenges) when it comes to how we do business and more specifically, how we train and learn. That said, it has also offered a number of growth opportunities in areas where it previously didn’t seem plausible.  While that doesn’t make the hardships of the last few years disappear (far from it), it does open up some thought for where we can go from here, especially when it comes to online education and training.  

While the pandemic certainly skyrocketed the boom-like growth within online learning, virtual events and the overall enhancement of virtual facilitation, the online education industry was actually already experiencing significant growth and adoption in the years leading up to it.

As a result, learning and streaming platforms come to the plate in a big way, as you can see in the graphs below that demonstrate the...

Best Practices for Hybrid Events

As we make the triumphant return to in-person gatherings, we’re also beginning to see the return of live events. While it is certainly exciting to see the return of live group learning and especially the rise of hybrid type events, they’re not without their own set of challenges.

If you’re unfamiliar with the term hybrid event, it is the process of combining a live event with a virtual one, so that people can attend regardless of their location and level of comfort given ongoing concerns related to Covid-19.

While restrictions have been lifted in most places, there is still hesitation from many to travel or attend conferences where there are a lot of people in one place, making the hybrid structure a great avenue to accommodate a larger and more geographically dispersed audience.

Benefits of Hybrid Events

Aside from the obvious benefits for those feeling uncomfortable with in-person gatherings or events, there are several key...

This trope has likely come up in subject lines and web searches time and time again over the last few weeks urging you to become a better version of yourself now that we’ve approached a new year.

This never really made sense to us, because, often at the beginning of a new year we’re recovering from a busy holiday season, the days are short, and, honestly, our capacity for change is minimal.  That’s why we don’t typically recommend resolutions and heavy goal setting first thing.  However, that doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t be thinking about the year ahead and how you might want to maximize it.

More and more, as we chat with Subject Matter Experts (SMEs) who are tired of the status quo, we have realized that they’re looking for more, but just aren’t sure how to get there.  If 2022 has presented you with this unique challenge and it feels scary and uncomfortable, yet oddly exciting, then you’re likely on the right...

All too often, online presenters are in a one-way conversation during which they push out a bunch of information to a group of silent audience members.  This can happen when presenters experience internal and external barriers, such as self-confidence and familiarity with the technology.

The good news is, there are a host of practical strategies that are quick and easy to incorporate in your next presentation.

When I teach my Online Presentation Secrets workshops, I share the WOSLIE Way, shiftED’s methodology for activating audience engagement. When I coach individual clients, we peel back the layers to get to the root of their barriers and then we work together to determine specific WOSLIE tactics to incorporate in their presentations, based on their audience and their objectives...and their comfort level. 

WOSLIE is uncomplicated, but it can be as nuanced as your experience warrants with literally...

In a previous blog post, I talked about a few planning and design strategies for optimizing the online learning experience. Following that, I received emails and direct messages from people who were either considering implementing an online program or had done so and wanted to refine their process.

Some asked about maximizing engagement and minimizing their audience’s tendency for multi-tasking. Others challenged my best practices (which I love, by the way), suggesting they wouldn’t work with their particular audiences – my reaction is, consistently, “you know your audience better than I do, but let’s hold off on saying it won’t work until after you’ve tried it, okay?”

Fact is, some strategies will work better with certain audiences. There are differences with respect to facilitating an online workshop for a small internal team in comparison with a public webinar. What I mean by that is, let’s say you are talking...