Professional Development 201: From Basic to Dynamic

1: Introduction

What is a webinar?

A webinar is an online seminar that allows participants from anywhere in the world to come together in a virtual classroom to share information via the internet.

Webinars use virtual classroom software to host participants. These platforms provide for the use of other web tools such as presentation slides, text chat, and web cameras. We will learn more about how to use these tools effectively in your webinar later on in this course.

Webinars have a number of advantages over other types of learning events, and they can be easy to pull off with the proper “know how.”

An untrained webinar facilitator can lose her audience in a number of ways:

Doing too much lecturing, having too many slides, or having too much drab text on the screen instead of images with emotional appeal can leave participants bored and disinterested.
Using the wrong type of chart, using the wrong font, using too many tools, or using other confusing visuals can leave participants bewildered and lost.
Not starting on time, being disorganized, experiencing technical glitches, or having too many people talking at once can leave participants frustrated and angry.

[Explosion sound]

To help make sure your webinar doesn’t succumb to any of these common pitfalls, we’ve developed PD201: From Basic to Dynamic to help you design and deliver great professional development webinars!

We are going to provide you with background information and best practices on adult learning, content development, facilitating techniques, and evaluation methods that can help you before, during, and after your webinar.

We have a lot of information that we want to share with you, so let’s get started.

Welcome to PD201: From Basic to Dynamic.