Full Circle Associates

Dan Balzer shares his experiences and lessons learned from doing blended live facilitation - he presenting F2F, his co-presenter joining online. You have to join LearningTimes Network - it's free and it is a very interesting community concerned with all aspects of learning.

In this case study, LearningTimes member Dan Balzer reflects on the unique aspects of presenting a conference session to a face-to-face audience with remote co-presenters/participants live online.

Some of Dan's gems:

Lessons - what I will do differently next time

I will plan the session with specific interaction questions that the virtual facilitator injects into the session.

I will have a "blogger"/moderator in the room working with the virtual facilitator and being his/her eyes and ears.

I will place additional microphones throughout the room to pick up classroom comments. It’s easy enough to do with a multiple jack adapter.

I will see if I can set up a camera showing both presenter and room.

I will encourage participants to engage the virtual presenter with questions as well. Eg. A participant commented that learners in the corporate setting would not be as amenable to participating in the story-telling activity that we used as an opener. Since Randall has more experience in the corporate setting I restated the question and let him address it.

I will provide more information at the beginning of the session for the virtual facilitator -- ie. number of people in the room, transitions being made.

Observations about what’s "different" about blended facilitation

In blended facilitation, some previously invisible "process elements" become part of the mainstream interaction. At times, it is necessary to make process comments to the other facilitator in the hearing of the participants. E.g. As I turned over the segment on the case for scenario-based elearning to Randall I said, "I’m keeping an eye on the clock and let’s do this segment in 3 to 4 minutes". The response from Randall was, "OK, that’s no problem." In a 100% virtual setting, these kind of interactions are typically done using the private chat feature. In the f2f setting these process adjustments are communicated either nonverbally (e.g. Pointing at a watch) or in side conversations during transitions. So the facilitators have to be comfortable letting the participants in on their decision-making process to a greater degree than in the non-blended settings.

Blended facilitation brings together the personal touch through the presence of the on-site facilitator with the voices of experts in the virtual world. My hypothesis (yet to be tested) is that the immediacy of this kind of interaction can increase motivation for learning and enhance engagement.

Questions

In what contexts would a blended facilitation approach add value to the training that you do?

What role would you play most effectively in a blended facilitation event?

What "means for learning" (i.e. technology tools) do you have readily available that you could combine in a new way to create a learning event?