A good online support complements your seminar. With your support, you want to support learning and the practical application of your methods. Just as you prepare a seminar, you should also proceed similarly with your online support. You consider a rough concept for your seminar. This concept outlines the goals your seminar will achieve and what exercises and methods you will use for this purpose. The same applies to the online support. To ensure your participants benefit even between seminar dates and after the seminar, you have prepared and compiled some supplementary online content. This online content includes worksheets, some quiz questions, and the presentations from your last course sessions.
Participants who attend your seminar sessions should have access to your supportive online content during the course. You provide this online support through the blink.it app (Curious but still unsure how your solution could look? Just contact us. We are happy to help you https://www.blink.it/kontakt/).
This is what your online support could look like:
Consider which online content might be helpful between seminar appointment 1 and seminar appointment 2. This could include, for example, reflection questions or a knowledge check on content from the previous course appointment. If you have introduced a method in the course, address your participants in a short video. In this video, you raise the questions: “What is particularly important about the method?”, “When is the method used?” Finally, give the participants a call to action (e.g., “Consider how often you used this method last week? When you use the method next time, what will you do differently?”). Connecting online content with course appointments is also possible. You could send your participants a short text in preparation for the next course appointment and ask questions related to that text. In the next course appointment, you discuss the results in the group. The blink.it app sends this online content to your participants at the right time. This means you can automate your entire online support right at the beginning of the training.
Explain to your participants why your online support exists
I would like to show you various ways to draw attention to your online support. You want to make access for your seminar participants as easy as possible. This reduces dropout due to "process losses." This means participants do not use your online support because they do not understand how to log in or operate the platform, for example. When you explain the meaning and purpose of the online support to your participants, you additionally increase their willingness to participate and exercise motivation.
The first contact via email before the first course appointment
Write an email to your participants before the first course appointment. In this email, explain what your online support is about.
An example email could look like this:
Perhaps you noticed the curly braces. These are called placeholders. For example, a participant in your course is named “Maria Müller.” In the email, “Maria” and “Müller” are replaced. This way, your participants are directly addressed by name (“Hello Maria Müller,…). The placeholder should definitely be in your email. It refers to the course link. Without this course link, your participants will not gain access to your online support.
Introduce your online support personally in the first course appointment
If your participants have Wi-Fi in the seminar room, ask them to access the online support on their own smartphones or laptops. This way, participants have the first contact with your online support while you are present. If there are questions, you can answer them directly. The good thing about this is: Your participants have already seen the platform when they access your online content at a later time.
To access your online support, your course participants will need the course link. You can copy this course link into your presentation slides. Then participants can write down this link. It goes faster if the QR code of the link is scanned with a smartphone. You can also include this combination of link and QR code in a handout.
This is what a handout with link and QR code might look like:
You create the QR code online. There are countless QR code generators available on the web. I use these generators (free and with minimal advertising):
Simply enter your course link into the text box. The QR code will be generated. Right-click the QR code and select “Copy image” (alternatively “Save image as” or use the “Save” button on the page). Finally, you insert the QR code into your document (e.g., PowerPoint, Word, etc.). Now your course link can be scanned with a smartphone.
Connect your blinks with your exercises and tasks
If you provide worksheets or other printed materials, add a note about your online support (e.g., in the header or footer).
You can link your tasks with the corresponding blink (e.g., "...you can find more information in blink 4.3 'Formulating Feedback'"). Explain in a short video blink what the task is about and why the task is important. Participants learn more motivated when they can understand the meaning and purpose of your tasks. Answer these questions for your participants: “Why is this task important? How will the task be helpful? In which situations should the acquired knowledge or behavior be applied?” Another advantage of a short video is that your participants can see you again weeks after the course and receive a personal address from you. You can fully showcase your impact as a trainer through video. Participants will also be reminded of seminar dates and content.
Provide the course via NFC code
NFC stands for Near Field Communication (Overview article on NFC by Chip). Many modern smartphones can read data via NFC, including a web address. For example, you can describe an NFC sticker with your course link. You stick the sticker on your business card, worksheets, or your handout.
I have created a short video to show how the course link can be transmitted wirelessly:
What do you need for this?
An NFC-enabled smartphone (currently not possible with Apple devices as NFC can only be used for Apple Pay).
An NFC app. I described the sticker in the video with the free app NFC-Tools.
NFC stickers. This sticker will transmit the course link. I ordered my stickers from this shop.
The business card printing company Moo.com has recently started offering NFC business cards. So, you could have business cards printed, which integrate a link to your online support directly. You can find all information about NFC business cards here.
We are happy to support you in creating your online support! Write us a comment if you have any questions or suggestions.
