You know when you’re compiling resources to read and share later and then you don’t? Yeah. The title of this post is the subject line of an email from a colleague who asked me about how to improve online meetings and webinars.
And it occurred to me that I had answers! All waiting to be shared. Thank you for asking!
So, here is what I sent. I hope you find this useful.
I recommend watching this NewCanadiansTV Cafe webinar with Roxana Radulescu, the Founder of All Personal, a training and coaching agency. It’s excellent.
She continues with some really good videos on her YouTube channel. I haven’t watched them yet, but I would imagine her three part series on Virtual Meeting Prep would be worth a watch.
Nonprofit consultant Beth Kanter is a “master trainer” and has been writing about and sharing resources about making online meetings/webinars more effective.
And I would strongly suggest checking out this online group/mailing list of online facilitators sharing tips and best practices – Facilitators for Pandemic Response: “This group is a place for those who facilitate online (or need to) can learn, share and make offers to the world as the Covid19 virus plays out. We welcome (online) facilitators, organizers, technology stewards (people who can straddle between communities and technologies and help people make and implement tech choices and other interested people. We welcome offers, asks, experiments and sharing.”
You can view and search the messages without joining. If you do join, it’s pretty high volume, or has been over the past few months, so you’ll want to filter the messages into a folder to avoide inbox chaos! But, super rich sharing and insights here. Really the essence of the promise of the internet – insightful and open sharing and learning among peers.
The group facilitator/owner, Nancy White (who is awesome and shares so much great stuff on her site) has also created an Online Meeting Resources Toolkit for Facilitators During Coronavirus Pandemic, which I think continues to be updated. You should definitely read it.
You can get a good sense of Nancy and how she approaches her work in this article.
TESL Ontario also shares recordings of their webinars, which include tips about online teaching, and you might find some useful tips there.
And if you really want to have fun and get into the nuances of not just hosting online meetings, but create online experiences, this article by Misha Glouberman is fantastic: How to Host a Cocktail Party on Zoom (and have better classes, conferences and meetings, too).
Tell me about resources you’ve found useful!