In today’s technological advancement, we can connect with people all around the world, more efficient and effective than what we could even imagine. I was able to attend two international club meetings, one at New York, The LACE club, and the other one with The Marine Parade in Singapore. Apart from toastmasters, Lots and lots of webinars all around the world, weekly zoom call with my friends, WhatsApp call with family.
oh! Yeah, the most interesting thing is I have attended two baby shower events one from Vietnam and the other from India and one wedding from south India via WhatsApp and Zoom. I also conducted a webinar on public speaking for a batch of college students from south India.
Learning never ends and it’s unstoppable. Post COVID we needed something to support education to keep it going. Technology has impacted learning to a larger extend.
I was aware of the application named zoom only by the year 2016, but today; a kid who goes to playschool and KG classes attend school via zoom. Knowledge of technical tools and software has become a need.
So now everything has gone virtual. Learning is no exception. We have webinars, podcasts, tutorial videos, presentations, and meetings via zoom, google meet, hangout, teams, and lot more.
The question is
- Do all sessions give the learners what they wanted?
- Have you felt satisfied with all the sessions you’ve attended?
- Was all the session engaging?
- Was it interesting?
Now, how many of you have muted and turned off your camera and started parallelly working on something else, while the session was going on. We tend to do that if the above challenges are not met.
“Necessity is the mother of invention”
There are lots of tools and game evolved to serve this purpose and strive hard to flourish in the market.
One such tool is the Dextr developed by Mr. Abhilash and Mr. Rakshith from Bangalore, India.
I attended one of their programs, an amazing experience indeed. The most impressive learning I had was the key that I am going to share with you today, which will help you to be smart with technology and manage online meetings, presentations, and webinars you do.
The key is to drive with GPS
• G- Gamification
When we use elements of a game to induce and enhance learning experience it’s called gamification. This will help us to give and receive immediate feedback, bake fun in the process of learning, and introduce a feeling of competition and collaboration. We can also use a scoreboard to add competitiveness and motivate participants.
• P-Personalization
Design the session that seems to be personal to every individual. Customize it to reach all the participants and their learning styles. What type of content or activity can blend them into the learning process? As a facilitator what is your role? These are the questions we should ask ourselves to meet this component.
• Socialization
During a classroom session, any discussions or activity conducted, participants collaborate within themselves and socialize. They will get to know each other, exchange their skills, form a team, a platform for learning begins there itself. Whereas in the virtual mode there is a challenge for collaboration between participants. They are on mute or cameras turned off most of the time.
Addressing these three points, GPS we can design and deliver an engaging, effective, interesting virtual programs.