These are some important items on my checklist that I go through to prepare before a webinar. And when I follow these religiously, I succeed!
1. Design a truly interactive and no-lecture webinar.
2. Prepare primary and secondary exercises or questions to allow “what if” situations.
3. Test and prepare all the links to demos, videos and websites to make sure they all work.
4. Test the timing of each section of your presentations and interactions.
5. Run a survey to get more background information about your participants.
6. Determine prior experience of the participants on a given topic.
7. Prepare your examples and illustrations based on the participant profiles.
8. Provide online access to advance readings and materials, videos and lessons.
9. Have participants test their video and Internet speeds.
10. Send in advance or ask participants to join a prep session to practice the webinar tools, specially if it is their first time.
11. Find a way through a group portal or social learning site or others like Sharepoint and LMs or Wiki to allow participants to introduce themselves and get to meet their co-participants online.
12. Ask participants to preview an advance video of your welcome message.
13. Set up the webinar room.
14. Meet up with your webinar moderator to plan, practice and prepare both of your roles.
15. Practice and rehearse your presentation using the webinar platform.
16. Do a technical dry run of your webinar tool.
17. Notify participants of very specific instructions on how to access session, schedule, and other reminders.
18. Have a technology backup plan or emergency plan when issues like lost connectivity, frozen keyboards, etc happen.
19. Keep a positive outlook and do your best but be prepared for the worst.
20. Psych yourself up that you are helping others gain value from your session.
Conclusion
A successful webinar presentation needs attention to certain significant details for it to succeed. This ensures that learners have a meaningful learning encounter; you facilitate rapid conversations and encourage experience-sharing to achieve the eventual goal of spurring learning and better job performance.
Ray Jimenez, PhD
Vignettes Learning
"Helping Learners Learn Their Way"
Thanks a lot, Mr. Jiménez, for these very useful tips!
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