Getting The Most From Online Training

Ultimately, all a webinar is is online training. You have a presenter, a preset course of information which will be presented and an online platform to present the material to a large, geographically diverse audience. At the end of the day though, attendees are there to learn something that they do not know, otherwise there is no real reason to attend.

So if you are about to attend a webinar, how do you set yourself up to ensure you get most value from it? There are some peculiar features you need to be aware of with webinars that  will impact this. The main things to be wary of include

1. Given it is a live event, you need to be prepared. If you are not there, or are not present, the webinar will carry on without you and you will miss the material
2. As you can login to the webinar from anywhere, be wary of logging in from a place where you will be easily distracted. If you are distracted, the webinar will carry on without you

Here are some tips for you, for preparing for a webinar to ensure you will get the most out of it:

• Login as early as you can. Often webinar platforms require some sort of download or registration process for attendance. If you login at the start time, you may miss the start while you fiddle around with the registration process
• Make sure you set yourself up in a location where there are no distractions. If you are at home, NOT in front of the TV and maybe close the door so the kids don’t interrupt
• We all have a personal effective way of taking notes, or remembering stuff. Make sure you are prepared to do this for the webinar to maximise retention of the material
• Review your notes the next day
• If the presenter offers access to a recording of the webinar, get a copy and listen to it again in a week or so. You’ll be amazed at the bits and pieces you missed
• Make an action plan to put some of the learnings to use
• Execute the action plan. If you don’t do this, why attend at all?

So there are some tips for getting the most out of any webinar you attend. Now go on, attend a webinar and develop yourself.