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Webinars are a powerful tool for education which can be used in almost any situation and for a variety of purposes. For educators they can save time and help them reach more adult learners at the same time. Whether you want to organized a one-time lecture, informative and Q&A sessions, online trainings webinar format can adjust to your needs.

This article will give suggestions and tips on delivering successful webinars based on experience with Adobe Connect. However, there are many other online meeting tools and software that can be used and the readers are encouraged to explore other options and give suggestions and recommendations in the comments below the article.

Check technical requirements

First thing is first. You should get to know the platform that you are using and know what type and version of OS is required for everything to function smoothly. Also, since most of the online meeting platforms are paid, that is to say, you have to purchase a license for using the software, so you should check what your subscription includes. For example, some subscriptions plans can be limited in the number of attendees. This is good to have in mind when deciding on the limit on the number of participants of your webinar.

Participants should also be aware of the technical requirements of their operating systems. Therefore, it is advisable to notify them on this in some way, whether it is via mail or as a part of the announcement of the webinar. Even if you do this it might happen that some participants have technical issues, so if you are delivering a webinar for the first time it would be wise to have some kind of technical assistance during the webinar in case if unpredictable fallbacks occur. It is recommendable to have a colleague who can help you with approving the participants, making notes of questions and/or pressing the record button or using other options of the platform while the presenter is delivering the presentation.

Test the functionalities of the platform before you broadcast the actual webinar. This will help you feel at home with all the tools available within the platform but also it will serve as a rehearsal of your presentation.

Functionality and Content

As previously mentioned this article is based on the experience with Adobe Connect so the functionalities described belong to this software, however, most software offer similar options, since their role is the same.

When you create a webinar you are the host and as such you have the access to all options including adding a presenter in case you have a guest speaker, giving microphone permissions to participants or adding polls, questions and answers, managing the chat space etc.

As a host you can deliver the entire presentation or similar to a face-to-face event you can invite an expert speaker, while you only moderate the webinar. The advantage here is that your guest speakers can log in from their own computer, in the comfort of their home or office from any place in the world with a stable internet connection. The same goes for the participants they can log in from wherever they are. Another very convenient advantage of webinar presentations is that they can be recorded so you can make it available for watching even after the presentation is over. Though those who view the webinar recording will not have the chance to join the discussion or ask questions, they can hear the lecture or a presentation and still get the information or knowledge you intend to share.

There are several options to share the content on the online meeting. You can share your screen, which means that you can open a document on your computer as you normally do and i will show on the screen of the webinar. With “share your screen” option everything you do on your computer will be visible to the participants. Another option is to upload a document (usually a power point presentation) or a video before the webinar starts and navigate through it during the presentation.

Usually, online meeting software will have a web camera option integrated so the participants will be able to see you and the presentation at the same time. The web camera can be switched off if you like, but our suggestions is to turn it on. Even though it might be easier to hide behind the screen and the presentations and you can do it from your pajamas, it is always better if you turn your web camera on, as it adds a human factor to the presentation and the participants know whom they are listening and talking to.

Attendees can join in the discussion by using their microphone on the computer, but you should disable microphone rights in the beginning and ask them to raise hand if they wish to speak and then turn on the microphone for individual attendees who want to speak or ask a question. If this sounds too complicated or if it there are technical issues webinar can be equally successful if you use chat box only for communication with the attendees.

Duration and time management

When planning a webinar, do not lose sight of the attention span of your target audience, i.e. learners. You should always be aware that no matter to what extent we try to make our webinar interactive, in the end our audience remains passive for the majority of time, which is not a bad thing, but you should be realistic about how much time you can expect one working adult who has a family and other obligations can dedicate to listening your lecture or presentation. A one-hour format is usually the most efficient, as it gives you enough time to elaborate on your topic, while at the same time it does not take up too much time of the learner. Some practical tips in time management of your lecture would be to divide it into parts:

• A short introduction of 5 minutes (It is recommendable to present content of the webinar at the start)
• Choose 3 or 4 subtopics or major points that you want to present dedicating around 10 minutes per topic. Try to present them in a simple way with a lot of examples.
• Leave 10 minutes for answering questions or engaging in discussion.
• Always leave 5 minutes extra for unpredictable situations (more questions than you expected, technical issues, etc.)

Of course, this is just a suggestion of a format that worked for me very well and which had a positive response from the audience. It is definitely not the only way to do it. The most important thing is that you feel natural in your role of the host or the presenter and that the presentation has a logical, coherent and purposeful flow. Another equally important indicator of a good webinar is that the attendees are satisfied, that they stay tuned until the end and that they get useful information from the presentation. Therefore, above all you should be flexible when planning your webinar and naturally, with experience you will learn how to adapt it best to the needs of your learners.