Collaborative Training Environment

Example- A new automated staff information system was recently purchased by a major corporation and needs to be implemented in six regional offices. Unfortunately, the staff is located throughout all the different offices and cannot meet at the same time or in the same location. As an instructional designer for the corporation, you have been charged with implementing a training workshop for these offices. As part of the training, you were advised how imperative it is that the staff members share information, in the form of screen captures and documents, and participate in ongoing collaboration.

There are many great options available, one just needs to do some research. One option that you could offer is a virtual session, utilizing a combination of video conferencing, such as Vidyo and web hosting program, such as On24, you would be able to host a training that can be live for multiple attendees, and recorded for future attendees, you have options like annotations, chats and Q&A sessions to interact the staff members they can share screen captures, documents and various other items during the session. Another great option is to utilize a CMS, like Moodle.com and create the course and allow discussions, 

During a recent roll out of a new software at the Firm we created a progressive roll out of the software training. We offered several Live in office and Virtual offerings, we also recorded a session and created a course in our LMS, our LMS is SumTotal, to offer to those unavailable for the live sessions. We then created Q&A sessions for after the roll out that could be attended and to allow for even more questions and collaboration. For these sessions we simply utilized a webinar hosting program, we use WebEx. 

As an Instructional Designer it is important to know your options, research your options and find the one that works best for that situation. Currently we are exploring options for how to offer more virtual training to our world wide offices, with budget and travel constraints it becomes important to look at options on how to continue to offer training sessions. This is where we get to really have some fun and explore options, try new things and see what works best for our clients. We have explored two options for some classes, we recently offered an entire 4 hour course virtually using video conferencing software. The class went well, our learners were engaged and the facilitator was able to get all the materials in. 

References:

www.webex.com
www.on24.com
www.vidyo.com
www.moodle.com
www.coursesites.com