We Faced Interaction Participants in our on-site workshops benefit greatly from the opportunity to meet and share ideas with the other workshop participants. To meet this need through online training, we designed the pilot so that participants have many opportunities to work together as a whole group, in teams, or in pairs. In our on-site workshops, each participant has an opportunity to plan, conduct, and receive supportive feedback on a presentation. Although it's possible to do the same thing using online video technology, we had to recognize that many of the trainers we were trying to reach would not have equipment sophisticated enough to support online video. Participants tape their presentations and send the tapes to Laubach headquarters in Syracuse, New York.
Staff then duplicate the presentations and send three to each participant for review.
These written reviews are then shared with the person who did the presentation. Although the pilot is not yet complete, we have learned many valuable things. It's essential to use a team approach when developing on-line training. It's VERY important to conduct a pilot test of the training before you make it available to the public. No matter how much care is taken in the development, there will always be problems that don't show up until you try it out with real people.