Today I attended a Training Magazine Network webinar “The Truth about Social Learning” presented by Jane Bozarth. The seminar was both informative and interesting but I believe the approach is even more so. Training Magazine Network offers a number of webinars presented by a number of different people. There are several things that are remarkable about the network’s approach to me:
First, the seminars are free but don’t seem to be designed to market a particular product or service. (The host will mention that Training Magazine has an upcoming convention but the presenter really doesn’t push it.) The material in the webinars is valuable, current and can be charged for in other venues.
The second item of interest to me is the three ring circus nature of the presentation. In the “center ring” is the presentation consisting of slides, verbal presentation and polling/questions. In another ring, is the running commentary/information exchange/networking occurring in the messaging window. In the two or three webinars I have attended by Bozarth, this is like watching a classroom run wild. But it doesn’t seem to faze Bozarth at all; she will let the irrelevant and a irreverent flow by without comment. But every once in a while, she will pick out a little gem to either comment on or, if it is a question, answer. One of the nice things about the software that is used to present the webinar, Blackboard Collaborate, is that you can print the entire dialogue. There are comments, URLs and references that add to the value of webinar.
During this webinar, Bozarth also provided a twitter feed with a hash code so that incline participants could also tweet about the presentation.
Third, I was also able to create a “ring” on my side. Since no one was “watching” me I was not only able to have a Word document open for notes, Twitter to follow the tweets but also a browser to check the author of a book or to go to URL that was published.
Finally, the Training Magazine Network promised to publish the recorded webinar for follow-up and provided a discussion area where people could ask questions and post comments on the webinar.
The entire experience was so rich that it made learning almost inevitable and also countered complaints that I have heard about webinars in the past. For example, when I was on a SAP project, one of the people who took some of the training through webinars complained about the lack of ability to network, build relationships, and ask for lessons learned from other people. If the SAP training program had taken an approach that more closely resembled Training Magazine Network’s, I think my coworker would’ve gotten more of what he wanted.
I would recommend the Training Magazine Network and its webinars to anyone interested in training or information development and delivery.