Are you interested in virtual training?
Maybe you’ve been a professional educator for decades and you’re looking for a new way to reach students. Maybe you’re brand new to the whole “teaching thing,” but you have a lot of valuable knowledge to share. Either way, virtual training is a wonderful opportunity.
In this article, we’ll explain what virtual training is and why it can be so beneficial. Then we’ll discuss virtual training platforms and give you tips to become a better virtual instructor.
Table of Contents
What is Virtual Training?
Virtual training is any form of training that happens within a virtual environment.
If you’ve ever attended an online educational event, wherein the teacher was able to engage with students in real-time, even though he/she didn’t share a physical space with his/her students, you’ve participated in virtual training to some extent.
Virtual training was popular before the pandemic, but it really exploded in 2020 when the world was required to social distance. Rather than not teach, many educators, in a wide variety of industries, decided to become virtual trainers and host lessons via the internet.
A significant portion of these educators continue to use virtual training methods today because they’re highly beneficial. (We’ll talk about benefits in the next section.)
One more thing: virtual training is occasionally referred to as “virtual instructor-led training” to help distinguish it from the many asynchronous training videos on the world wide web.
What Are the Benefits of Virtual Training?
Let’s talk about benefits…
Why are so many teachers using virtual training methods to engage students? Because virtual training is cost-effective and convenient and provides better reach.
Virtual Training is Cost-Effective
It costs money to rent classrooms, auditoriums, and other teaching spaces. Many teachers would rather save their money and host lessons in a virtual environment instead.
In-person training can be expensive for students, too.
Let’s pretend you’re hosting a three-day seminar in Berlin. To attend, potential students in Paris, for example, will need to buy a plane ticket, pay for hotel accommodations, and probably increase their food budget for the duration of the training.
Not so with virtual training. Students simply attend lessons from the comfort of their own homes or offices. This makes virtual training highly convenient…
Virtual Training is Convenient
Virtual training is incredibly convenient for both teachers and students.
Why? Because neither has to go anywhere to attend class. Assuming you have access to the internet, you can teach and/or attend a lesson while sitting on your couch at home. Or while sipping a hot beverage at your favorite local coffee shop. Or while… you get the idea.
The more convenient you make your lessons, the more likely it is that people will attend them. This is especially important if you’re hoping to make money from your training sessions and/or use them to market your business in some way.
Virtual Training Provides Better Reach
Virtual training gives you access to a world of students—literally.
You might live in San Francisco. But you can still train students in New York City, London, and Sydney thanks to virtual training platforms. (More of these platforms in the next section.)
Again, better reach is especially important if you’re hoping to make money from your training sessions and/or use them for marketing purposes. Think about it: more attendees equals higher revenue potential and will result in greater awareness of your brand. Win!
3 Virtual Training Platforms You Can Use
It doesn’t matter if you want to become a virtual fitness trainer, participate in virtual dog training, or host virtual business classes, you’re going to need technology.
The question is, which virtual training platform is best? Here are 3 options to choose from:
Zoom
Zoom Meetings is a popular video conferencing solution that can double as a virtual training platform. With it, you’ll be able to educate others via the internet and take advantage of key features such as calendar integration, screen sharing, and virtual backgrounds.
One of the best things about Zoom Meetings is that it’s familiar. Almost everybody has used the tool at one point or another. Unfortunately, it lacks important features for virtual training.
For example, Zoom Meetings doesn’t allow virtual trainers to send polls and surveys to students, charge for lessons in-app, or analyze meeting data. To access these features, you have to upgrade to a paid version of Zoom, which can get quite expensive.
Webex Suite
Webex Suite is a Cisco product that’s been around since 1996. The modern version of the tool can be used for virtual training purposes thanks to features like calendar integrations, screen sharing, breakout rooms, interactive polling, and virtual whiteboarding.
Like Zoom Meetings, Webex Suite offers a free plan. Unfortunately, it’s extremely limited, which means you’ll almost certainly need to invest $25+ a month into this tool.
While everyone is different and enjoys using different apps, we’ve heard complaints about Webex Suite’s user experience. There’s a chance that you and your students won’t enjoy using Webex Suite because it’s not as intuitive as other platforms.
ClickMeeting
Lastly, we have ClickMeeting, a top-rated video conferencing, webinar, and virtual event solution that many virtual trainers use to engage their students.
What makes ClickMeeting an ideal tool for virtual training purposes? The fact that it combines must-have features with an easy to use interface. The result is a powerful, intuitive platform that’s used by tens of thousands of people around the world.
Here are a few of the features that ClickMeeting users have access to:
Custom Branding: Make sure your virtual training sessions match your brand by adding your logo, including pictures, and choosing custom color schemes.
Presentation Mode: Easily share your computer screen with your students so they can better understand what you’re teaching them, engage them with a virtual collaborative whiteboard, and share documents without leaving the app.
Polls and Surveys: To become a great virtual trainer, you have to engage your audience. This is much easier to do with a polls and surveys feature. Ask your students questions throughout your lessons to reel them in.
Social Media Streaming: Every lesson you host via ClickMeeting can be streamed to either Facebook or YouTube, allowing you to reach more people at one time.
PayPal Integration: PayPal is one of the most popular payment processors in the world. ClickMeeting integrates with PayPal, which means you can easily charge your students a fee for attending your lessons and produce income for your efforts.
Lesson Recordings and Analytics: Finally, ClickMeeting allows virtual trainers to record their lessons. That way they can reuse them later if they want to. ClickMeeting also includes lesson analytics so trainers can learn who their students are.
Does ClickMeeting sound like the right virtual training platform for you? Then sign up for a free 30-day trial and take it for a test drive! We’re confident you’ll love the results.
3 Tips For Better Virtual Instructor Led Training
You know what virtual training is, why it’s important, and the technology you need to educate students via the internet. What’s next? Now we’re going to share our top three tips for better virtual instructor-led training. Keep these things in mind during your lessons.
1. Know Your Audience
Who are you going to be training? Once you know the answer to this question, you can design lesson plans that you know your students will connect with and enjoy.
You wouldn’t, for example, design the same lesson plan for high school kids as you would for seasoned business professionals, would you? Of course not. Your plan for high schoolers would probably feature simpler language and a multitude of YouTube videos. Your plan for professionals, on the other hand, would likely feature specific industry terms and examples.
So, before you host any kind of virtual training session, take a moment to study your audience. Who are they, what do they struggle with, and how can you help them?
2. Focus on Engagement
The key to effective virtual training is engagement.
If you can’t engage your students in your material, they won’t enjoy your lessons. They probably won’t attend future lessons either. Why would they? You bored them to death.
Fortunately, student engagement isn’t rocket science. If you’ve taken time to get to know your audience (see above,) you’re already halfway there. It will be much easier to engage your students if they’re interested in the material you plan to share with them.
But you need more than a good topic. You need your students to participate.
As mentioned earlier, tools like ClickMeeting allows virtual trainers to ask their students questions via polls and surveys. This is a great way to engage them!
Other ideas include using ClickMeeting’s in-app chat functionality to converse with students and allow them to ask you questions, as well as using ClickMeeting’s breakout rooms feature to split students into small groups where they can complete activities of your choosing.
3. Get Post-Training Feedback
Feedback is scary—what if your students didn’t enjoy your online lesson? But they’re super important if you want to improve as a virtual trainer. Don’t skip this tip!
ClickMeeting makes it easy to ask students for feedback. All you have to do is use the platform to send a post-training survey. Doing so will allow students to rate your lessons and leave comments, which you can use to improve your material and delivery.
The results of your post-training surveys will then be easily accessible in the “Event Statistics” area of your ClickMeeting account, where you can study them.
You can, of course, get feedback without using ClickMeeting. You could, for instance, just send all of your students a quick email after your lesson concludes. It’s an old school approach and requires a bit more work, but it can be effective, all the same.
Become a Virtual Trainer Today!
Virtual training is a fantastic opportunity!
If you have knowledge to share, consider sharing it via the internet. That way you can enjoy the convenience of online teaching and reach more students at one time.
Just remember, to participate in this form of education, you need to invest in a virtual training platform. We suggest ClickMeeting because it’s powerful, easy to use, and won’t break the bank. Sign up for a free 30-day trial today to see if it’s the right tool for you.
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