Do you want to run great online meetings, workshops and events?
Learn and practice ways to make online events participatory, engaging and productive.
The world is changing. COVID 19 has challenged us to move many of our meetings online, while the Climate Crisis encourages us to make online interactions part of our regular practice in the future. With technology rapidly developing, facilitators have a unique opportunity to contribute significantly to people’s virtual experience, making meetings more inclusive, more effective and more fun!
- Continue to function effectively during COVID 19
- Design and deliver interactive, engaging online events
- Allow people to exchange experience and knowledge
- Pay attention to issues of diversity, inclusion and power
- Produce compelling documentation
- Reduce travel and venue costs
The course is divided into 7 sessions, and is held online twice a week. Each session lasts for 2 hours. The course is delivered using Zoom but is intended to be ‘platform agnostic’. If people wish to run their practice sessions via a different platform, that is encouraged.
We also invite you to participate in a discussion forum where you can post questions, request resources, have discussions with your course peers and download the materials from each session.
Download a summary of the course.
Who is the course for?
This course is intended for anyone who is experiencing the growing demand for effective online meetings, workshops and events – and who wishes to develop their skills as both facilitators and producers of online gatherings.
Anyone who is leading virtual meetings, virtual teaching, webinars or other events in the private, public or voluntary sector including Teachers and Lecturers, Project Managers, Team Leaders, Facilitators, Trainers, Coaches, and Community Activists
Assumptions and Requirements
All participants should have basic computer literacy skills and a basic competence in Zoom. The language of delivery will be English.
You will need:
- An account with an online platform (Zoom (free or paid or any other you prefer), so that you can practice setting up and running a meeting.
- Your own headset with integrated microphone, or earbuds with microphone
- A laptop/desktop from which you will join, rather than a tablet or phone
What will you gain?
- Learn to lead engaging online meetings, workshops and events that elicit innovative thinking and creative problem-solving.
- Gain competency leading virtual meetings, workshops and events regardless of platform.
- Build your confidence as a virtual facilitator.
- Learn tools and techniques for virtual meeting design and eliciting participation.
Each cohort will be limited to 18 participants to ensure high levels of interaction and personal attention:
- PRACTICE. Integrate learning by designing a virtual Focused Conversation with a partner, and by practising as facilitators and producers, with the rest of the class acting as participants.
- FEEDBACK. Receive peer and instructor feedback during practice sessions.
- CLASSROOM. Seven virtual sessions using Zoom.
- ASSIGNMENTS. Some light exploratory ‘homework’ may be provided between sessions, e.g. setting up your own Zoom preferences, researching icebreakers and energisers, comparing different documentation tools etc.
- RESOURCES. We will provide an ‘asynchronous’ discussion forum (Basecamp) for posting of ‘homework’, uploading of session chat and recordings, and conducting between session discussions, as a way of deepening learning.
Our Trainers
For this course we are pleased to be working in partnership with a wider group of trainers, many of whom were involved in the design of this course originally and who bring extensive online knowledge and experience. See here for their profiles. At least two will be involved in the delivery of the course.
See also Lead Trainer Orla Cronin’s blogs on this topic:
Going Virtual? 6 tips to make your virtual meetings more effective and engaging
The Producer Role in Virtual Events – more than just a ‘spare pair of hands’
and her Case Study: Facilitating “hybrid” offline/online events
Other Case Studies
South Tyneside Council’s Children’s Services (Dawn Williams)
Ecovision (Moldova) (Bhav Patel)
Please visit our course calendar to see upcoming dates for this course and make a booking. Alternatively, contact us to enquire about a tailored in-house course for your organisation.
