The Live Online Revolution Begins - New Certification for Live Online Event Facilitators Launched by the IITT
The IITT has today launched a brand new certification programme for everyone who will be delivering live online learning events, meetings and webinars.
"Today's organisations are requiring learning and development professionals to do more with less. They are being asked to deliver learning to more people, with less budget, and provide learning events that will save money but deliver increased business performance," explained IITT Chief Executive and architect of the programme, Colin Steed.
"Live, online learning - also called synchrononous learning or virtual learning - can deliver this to organisations - but there are fundamental problems facing L&D management. The traditional delivery skills of classroom trainers simply will not transfer into to the online classroom. The success of live online learning events depends entirely on the quality of your L&D professionals' skills in facilitating live online events. Without these skills, your learning events will fail", he said.
"New skills and techniques to facilitate online learning using web conferencing software are vital for successful learning events."
Leading global L&D commentator Nigel Paine welcomes the new certification programme: "There has been a veritable explosion of live online learning over the last few years and that dramatic increase will continue as companies see the value of linking their staff to an expert in real time without having to ferry everyone to the same place," he said. "The skills for this new kind of teaching are ill-defined and vague. Some do it brilliantly, others less so. The IITT is right on the button in developing standards for live online teaching. This initiative will be welcomed by all of those involved. But more importantly it will increase the quality of teaching and, therefore, the benefit back to the company providing the learning. Everyone wins."
Steed explained that when the IITT was formed in 1995 it developed standards and produced certifications to ensure that all trainers were able to deliver courses that provided high quality learning events in the classroom.
"Now, it's time for the Live Online Learning revolution, with many organisations now converting classroom events to the live online environment," he said. "But once again the IITT is at the forefront and has developed standards and produced a certification programme and a live assessment model to ensure that trainers facilitate live online sessions to the IITT standards."
He continued: "It's simply not a case of trainers porting their classroom skills into the online environment. What they need to do is draw on those skills and layer them on to the new skills and techniques of maximising the engagement of the remote learners in the online classroom. This new certification programme will do that. I implore everyone looking to move into the online environment to get trained now - we owe it to our learners."
The BBC Academy's Manager of Online and Informal Learning, Nick Shackleton-Jones, agrees: "Organisations are looking for improved flexibility and efficiency by delivering events and training online. A common - and costly - mistake is to assume that the same skills are required for both live and online formats. Delivering successful online events requires a specific skill set, and it is good to see that the IITT offers credible learning and certification in this area."
The Certified Online Learning Facilitator
This certification workshop from the IITT will provide learning professionals with essential online training environment skills, providing 14 hours of live online instruction, together with self study assignments, and culminating with an assessment of those skills in a live environment.
Audience
This workshop is for L&D professionals who want to build their expertise in delivering effective live online learning events. It provides the skills to maximise the engagement of remote participants, develop and produce engaging and interactive online content which will help participants learn online, and provides the techniques necessary for facilitating and managing live online learning events, meetings and webinars.
Although some training delivery and facilitating experience is beneficial, it is not mandatory - as the essentials are covered in the workshop. However, in this case you may expect to spend more time in the self-directed study assignments.
Note that the workshop is applicable to all L&D professionals, irrespective of the subject matter they teach.
To find out more visit http://ow.ly/2NGUX