As a trainer, you have irregular working hours. You are often on the move and spend time in the car, on the train, or in a hotel. Even while on the go, you can work on your online support. With a current smartphone and laptop, you are already well-equipped for media production.
Why should you have online training support?
You have the content for your face-to-face course in your head and your presentation on your laptop or USB stick. In your course preparation, you have ensured that your participants have fun during the course session and learn as much as possible. But how do you support your participants between course sessions? Even more importantly, what assistance and information do you provide for long-term practical transfer after the course ends? The answer: You provide your participants with an online support accompanying your course.
How do I set up online support?
Utilize the potential of your smartphone! If you have purchased a new device in the last two years, you already have everything you need for media production in your pocket. The blink.it App is your tool to share your content with your participants at the right time.
Expand your offering step by step and do not get lost in planning
You will not create the online support for your courses in one go. Instead, think of your online support as a process. Let's say you are offering a course. This course takes place every week for four consecutive weeks as a course session. In the first step, you might create just two or three online contents for your online support:
This could be, for example, a short video message before your course starts. You share this video with your participants a week before the course begins.
The second content might be a quiz inquiry after the second appointment. You will discuss the results of this inquiry during the third course session with your participants.
You stumble upon an interesting web article related to your topic after the course ends. Why not share this article with your participants? Every piece of content is an offering to your participants.
Everything from a single source - Provide your online support in a bundled manner
When you use blink.it to provide your online support, you don’t have to compile and send individual emails. You also don’t have to manage different providers for quiz inquiries, video hosting, and content delivery. This saves time and nerves. Notifications that your participants should receive in a few weeks will also be automatically sent at the right time. New course group, same process? Your courses can be reused very easily. Copy the course along with all its contents and add the new participants. In this new course, the process of your online support is already automated. Once you have created a few contents for your online support, you can change and expand them freely. Just as you probably do with your exercises and information in the course session. This way, you always offer your participants relevant and valuable information in the respective course groups. You can complete these tasks through the blink.it App. And it looks nice for your participants and is easy to use.
Why should you provide your course groups with specific information?
You support learning because you provide your participants with needs-based information. Additionally, you support practical transfer because you stay in contact with your participants after the training. Furthermore, you build an audience and thereby improve your self-marketing. If you provide your participants with good content, they will find your training and especially your online support fantastic. Participants notice how important your topic is to you. Your participants will mention your training informally or formally to their supervisors. Good feedback increases the likelihood that you will be booked again.
In which course phases do your online contents reach your participants?
With your smartphone, you can produce a large part of the online contents. For example, you take photos during the course and then compile them into a photo protocol after the course ends on the train. You then upload this photo protocol to the blink.it App and set it so that your participants will be notified automatically in three days.
In these various course phases, your online contents are an additional offering for your participants:
Before the first course session
Create a short welcome video. Your (future) participants will have seen you briefly. You can also provide this welcome as an audio message.
Send your participants a topic-related podcast to set the mood. This way, you already have a good start for the first course session.
Conduct a survey and ask your participants some questions to get a sense of what particularly interests your group. This way, you can tailor your course to the participants' needs.
During the course session
Take photos with your smartphone. You can use these images for your photo protocols and worksheets.
Conduct an interview with a participant and record the conversation. Of course, you will inform them beforehand where and how the recording will be used. The person doesn't have to disclose their name. You can incorporate these recordings into your exercises, and they can also be used on your blog or in sales.
You can assign your participants the task of recording a If-then plan via video. With each new group, you will quickly notice how much you can challenge the participants with new media. If you find a participant who wants to give you a video statement about your training, that is a nice thing for sales or your website and offers more than the usual written feedback.
Between two course sessions
Create a quiz inquiry and get feedback on a specific exercise or method you introduced (e.g., "How well did you manage to ... last week?"). You can directly incorporate the evaluation into the next course session.
With your smartphone, you can also take your own conversation notes. Did a contribution or aspect during the last course session particularly concern you? Why not share your thoughts in a short audio recording?
When you introduce methods during the course, you motivate your participants to practice with videos. Address the participants personally. Explain to them why the method is important and when it should be used.
After the training
With the Scanbot App, you can create handwritten worksheets or exercise tasks with your smartphone. You export these documents as PDFs and upload them directly to the blink.it App. Creating a photo protocol is also no problem for Scanbot (you can find the article on the topic of photo protocols here). That’s why you took some recordings during the course.
You provide additional short videos on your exercises and methods. The great thing is that when you conduct the course again, the recordings are already done and can be reused.
Your course ended four weeks ago, but you happen to find a new, exciting piece of content? Write to your participants! If that isn’t sustainable support, what is?
Do you have an email newsletter? Participants who are interested in further events from you can voluntarily sign up. This way, you can also stay in contact with participants, even if the training or seminar took place months ago. Important! Use newsletters sparingly and include an option to unsubscribe.
What concerns you about the topic of online support? We look forward to your questions and comments!
