Waking up webinars: bringing active learning online - Lemke

Dorothea Lemke
Technical University of Munich
University Library
Lilac 2017, Swansea
April 11, 2017
Waking up webinars
Bringing active learning online

2Dorothea Lemke (TUM) | University Library
Previous webinar experience – scenario 1
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First scenario
• Lecture followed by questions via chat.
• Sometimes little polls in between that check whether participants have understood what
had been presented.
• Duration 15 to 60 minutes.
• Participants are very passive.
• Topics are often covered superficially.
3
Dorothea Lemke (TUM) | University Library

4Schulungsteam (TUM) | Universitätsbibliothek
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Second scenario
• Very active webinar: participants are encouraged to use their microphones, to ask
questions and share their experience. There are polls and discussions via chat.
• (+) Participants can participate actively.
• (-) There is too much activity / distraction such as:
 Lots of background noises from different microphones, because many participants
don’t mute their microphones.
 Lots of movement from different webcams.
 Lots of discussions in the chat during the presentation, part of them are private topics.
 => Hard to follow the presenter with so much else happening at the same time.
Bottom line
I wanted to encourage participants to participate actively, but still keep a calm and
concentrated learning environment.
5

Outline
1. Initial situation and aim
2. Engaging participants
3. Webinars - pros & cons
4. 10 lessons learnt

7
Where we started
Munich: Main Campus
Munich => Garching:
approx. 12 miles
Munich => Freising
approx. 25 miles
Munich => Straubing:
approx. 87 miles

• Today the Technical University of Munich (TUM) has approx. 40.000 students and 10.000
members of staff, spread over 4 campuses (Munich, Garching, Freising, Straubing).
• The university library is responsible for providing all campuses with information literacy
courses.
• In 2013 when the project started we had an IL team of 8 people, 4.5 FTE.
• Today we have 12 colleagues, 6.5 FTE, with 2 vacancies waiting to be filled for IL training.
• In 2013 the university library offered 8 different standard courses on information literacy
and reference management programmes.
• Our clients are students, staff members, high school students and high school teachers.
8
Where we started

• Different campuses received different standards of training services.
• It varied between 2 courses a year and 8 courses 8-12 times a year.
 In Munich (main campus) we offered regular classes; approx. 4-6 scheduled courses of
each course type each semester.
 In Garching we offered each course type once a semester. Courses often have to be
cancelled because they were undersubscribed – despite the fact that Garching is the
campus with the highest number of students at TUM.
 In Freising we offered each course type once or twice a semester. Some of them were
held by local library staff, some by colleagues travelling from Munich.
 In Straubing, our most distant campus, we offered 2 courses once a year. These courses
were held by staff members travelling from Munich. Training computers had to be brought
from Munich which was very time-consuming.
• Although the courses were well rated by participants it was hard to reach students and staff
members and get them to come to our courses.
• To sum up: We had 4 campuses with very different level of training services and problems
in attracting our clients to come to our courses.
9
Where we started

Idea and aim
Image: © Risager - Flickr.com, published under CC0 1.0 license [Accessed 30.01.2017]

Aim:
• Provide far-away campuses with more regular courses and a wider course range.
• Reach students and research staff we have not been able to reach so far.
Obstacles:
• Not enough staff to offer all course types at every campus regularly.
• Participants` learning habits and media usage behaviour had changed. The expectation to
get everything delivered to their own screen was increasing.
Ideas & Considerations:
• Offer courses independent of location.
• Bring participants from undersubscribed classes together.
• Reduce travelling time.
• We already had self-learning courses (e-courses), but customers’ requests showed that
there was a need for face-to-face support.
• Find a course format that allows us to convey the same content as the classroom course.
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Idea and aim

Solution: Webinars
• Webinars seemed the logical solution to offer personal support in an online environment. It
allows us to:
 offer our courses more regularly for all locations.
 merge undersubscribed classes from different locations.
 save travelling time and personnel resources.
 reach clients who wouldn’t go to the library to attend a course, but are willing to attend
a webinar from their own office (especially PhD candidates and research staff).
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Idea and aim

13
An experiment with far reaching impact
Image: © Amir Kaljikovic - Fotolia.com

• The experiment started in June 2013 with our first webinar, a webinar for the reference
management software Citavi.
• We used the video conferencing software Adobe Connect Meeting which is licensed for all
German universities by the German Research Foundation. Therefore there was no financial
risk involved.
• This first webinar received very good feedback, which encouraged us to adapt more
courses to the webinar format over the next 2 years, both in German and English.
• Today we have 7 different webinars which are an important part of our training programme.
Facts & Figures (09.03.2017):
• Webinars given in total: 78
• Webinars per semester today: approx. 14
• Webinar participants in total: 1107
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An experiment with far reaching impact

Courses adapted to the webinar format today

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Webinar setup

• When you enter the webinar room it contains:
 list of participants, chat, presentation area, course outline, webcam of presenters,
download area for course materials and a note that asks the participants to check their
audio settings
• Participants microphones are muted but are activated on request.
• The webinar is held by 2 presenters
 to offer some change in voice.
 to always have one person who can completely concentrate on looking after the
questions in the chat while the other can concentrate on the presentation.
• All webinars were adapted from already existing classroom courses.
• The webinar includes all topics and exercises from the classroom course.
• Duration: 2-2,5 hours (always 30 minutes more than the respective classroom course)
• Target group: open to everybody, TUM students and staff as well as externals
• Minimum number of registered participants today: 10
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Webinar setup – how we do it

Schulungsteam (TUM) | Universitätsbibliothek 18
Spicing it up – engaging participants
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Activity elements in classroom courses and how to adapt them to the webinar setting:
• Introduction rounds
• Collecting and selecting course topics
• Exercises
• Group activity
• Activating questions
• Participants’ questions and shared experience
• Evaluation
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Engaging participants

Dropping the mask – introduction rounds
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Why do we do it?
To make every participant speak within the first 5 to 10 minutes. It’s a wake-up call that this is
not a course you can sleep through.
How do we do it in the classroom course?
Short round where everyone gives their name, field of study and shares their experience or
questions regarding the courses topic.
How do we do it in the webinar?
Short round where everyone introduces themselves in the chat.
What’s the effect?
Wake-up call to participate. Reduces anonymity amongst participants, breaks the ice to use
the at the beginning empty chat and makes it their channel of communication.
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Introduction rounds

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Introduction rounds

Curiosity is the best teacher – collecting course
topics
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Why do we do it?
Because we think that you learn best what you need or are interested in. So we try to teach
our participants as much as possible what is relevant to them because they will forget most of
everything else.
Collect topics and questions on the flipchart or offer predefined topics participants can vote for.
We use a combination of a multiple choice poll and an open answer poll and create the course
according the results.
Participants feel valued because they can ask their questions at the beginning of the course.
Knowing their questions will be answered and the course’s topics are relevant to them, they
are much more attentive.
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Collection of course topics

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Collection of course topics

26
Exercises – hands on
experience
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Why do we do it?
We want our participants not only to understand but to enable them to use their knowledge.
For each topic there is an exercise to do on your own. Participants set up search strategies,
use different search tools or create a reference list using a reference management software.
They encounter difficulties and find solutions to these problems which would typically occur at
the workplace.
Same as in the classroom course. They can download the exercise sheet and do the
exercises.
The additional benefit is that participants use their own devices. They perform the exercises in
their real-life working environment and can solve problems they would otherwise encounter
later when they are on their own.
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Exercises

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Exercises

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Making people think – activating questions
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Why do we do it?
To make participants think about a topic/get into a topic and discuss their experience.
Find out what their level of knowledge is.
Collect answers on a flip chart, use raise-hand method or quick-fire round.
We ask the question in a chat dedicated to this question only or use a poll.
People think about a question and see how the other participants think about it – whether they
think along the same lines or have a different approach.
Presenters know what level of experience the group has or which operating systems they use.
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Activating questions

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Activating questions

Group activity
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Why do we do it?
Get into a topic and discuss their experience. Activate prior knowledge.
Put different questions to each group to be discussed. The results are captured on a flip chart
which is then presented to the other groups.
At the moment we are still working on implementing a group activity format. Instead we use
activating questions.
It’s a change of mode. Participants exchange ideas, opinions and experience.
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Group activity

Encouraging exchange – participants’ questions
and experience
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Why do we do it?
To answer our participants’ questions. Make them find out about differences and similarities.
Understand our participants’ problems and needs, to improve and expand our course programme.
Encourage participants and give them time to ask and think about what they need for their work.
Encourage them to share their experience and questions.
Questions are asked via chat, more rarely also via microphone. Simple questions or questions which
are only important to the person asking are answered directly in the chat. Questions which are
important for all participants are answered via microphone in a dialogue by both presenters - one
asking the question, the other answering it.
It makes the webinar more entertaining and lively. It shows our participants that their questions are
not stupid but important and part of the learning process and that others benefit from it, too.
35
Participants’ questions and experience

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Participants’ questions and experience

Comment symbols - keeping the flock together
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Why do we do it?
Keeping the flock together. Making sure everyone can follow, finished an exercise or is ready
to proceed with the next topic.
Asking, eye contact, observation.
Participants indicate via comment symbols that they have finished an exercise and are ready
to proceed with the next topic.
Shows participants that we expect them to do the exercises and not just wait for the solution.
Shows participants their progress and questions matter. Helps the presenters to give
participants enough but not too much time to do an exercise.
38
Comment symbols - keeping the flock together

Schulungsteam (TUM) | Universitätsbibliothek 39
Your opinion matters! – course evaluation
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Why do we do it?
To make our participants think about what they’ve learnt. To check if our courses meet our
participants’ needs and to find out where we can improve our services.
Via an anonymised print evaluation form at the end of each course.
• Anonymised evaluation via Evasys. Evasys is an online evaluation and survey software
used at TUM.
• In the webinar room we link to the online evaluation form via the web links pod.
• The results can be downloaded as a .csv file to be compared to and stored with the results
from the classroom courses.
We show our participants that their opinion matters and that we are trying to improve our
services to meet their needs.
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Evaluation via Evasys

41

42

Whiteboard
Can be used by presenters and participants.
Question & Answer-Tool
Participants ask, presenters answer. Question and answer can only be seen by participants
after the question has been answered.
Breakout rooms
Sub rooms for group work. All participants automatically have presenters rights. Results on
white boards etc. can be brought to the main room to be presented or discussed with the
whole group.
43
Tools in Adobe Connect we don’t use yet

After the webinar
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How do we prevent our participants from drowning after the webinar?
• Online drop-in sessions
• E-mail
• Lecture notes
• Further training courses and webinars
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What Happens After the Webinar

Upsides and downsides of webinars
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Webinars …
• can be used independent of location.
• allow the library to offer a wider course selection to far-off branches.
• often prevent undersubscribed courses from being cancelled by merging courses for
different locations in one webinar.
• reduce travelling time for presenters and participants.
• allow to execute exercises in real-life working environment.
• reach students, research staff and externals that usually wouldn’t attend a library course.
• can be recorded and played back later.
• can be certified with confirmation of participation.
• allow more participants per webinar than classroom courses.
• allow to involve participants actively.
47
Upsides of webinars

• The participants environment is unknown and uncontrollable – technically as well as
distraction wise.
• The format is heavily dependent on hard- and software and a good internet connection.
• The personnel costs for a single event are higher (two presenters, longer course, longer
preparation time).
• Many registered participants don’t attend.
• Lower return rate for evaluation forms than in classroom courses.
48
Downsides of webinars

Something to take home – lessons learnt
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1. Always do webinars with two presenters to allow a change of voice, as backup when
technical problems occur and to manage the chat.
2. Don’t hold a webinar in your office where colleagues, phones and unfinished tasks distract
you. Do it for example in a classroom you book for this purpose only. Preferably this room
has a white wall as your background wall.
3. Online there is less tolerance for technical problems. If your equipment doesn’t work your
participants are gone.
4. Therefore allow enough time for preparation before the webinar starts as a buffer for minor
technical problems.
5. Do all testing before you open the room to your participants. It looks very unprofessional if
you start setting up your audio five minutes before the webinar starts and your participants
are watching you struggle with technology. We start the set up 1 hour before the webinar
starts and open the room to our participants 15 minutes prior.
6. Use high-quality microphones / headsets. It’s really painful to listen to a voice for two and a
half hours with bad sound quality.
50
Lessons learnt I

7. Don’t let yourself be irritated by participants who are very quiet. Sometimes it’s hard to
judge whether your participants are dissatisfied with the course, absent or simply of a
more quiet nature and completely content with how things are going.
8. It’s important to give your participants audible directions. Participants get confused when
they don’t hear anything. So when you take a break to give your participants the
opportunity to do an exercise, communicate clearly that it’s exercise time and that’s why
you are not talking.
9. If you want your participants to participate actively, you have to encourage them explicitly
to ask questions, share their experience and assess your performance. Only because a
chat is available, doesn’t mean they will use it.
10. Take special care to prepare your participants before the webinar. This might be their first
webinar. Write an e-mail explaining how a webinar works, what kind of equipment they
need and where to meet. Tell them about software they might have to install beforehand or
passwords they need to have at hand.
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Lessons learnt II

Dorothea Lemke (TUM) | University Library 52
Résumé – It’s a balancing act!
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It’s a balancing act to …
• keep participants active while keeping a calm and concentrated learning environment.
• to handle question floods. Especially in the chat it can get messy.
Challenges:
• Dealing with technical issues before and during the webinar.
• Dealing with the lack of commitment of registered participants to attend the webinar.
It’s rewarding …
• when participants participate actively and you can watch their learning process.
• if your participants tell you that you created a great learning atmosphere and that they
benefitted a lot.
• when participants start to react to each other and start helping each other directly.
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Résumé – It’s a balancing act!

Thumbs up – participants’ voices
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“I would like to point out, that a 2-and-a-half-hour-webinar is very tough - especially for the
presenters. Both did a really GREAT JOB! I liked also a lot that it was not just a simple
presentation, but that after some minutes of presenter’s talk you switched to an exercise, a
pod, or some other activity. Especially for such a long webinar it is vital to keep participants
awake (or not drifting to some other activity like checking emails, or so) - ;) Well done also the
alternation between the two presenters: it is less tiring listening to different voices (than always
the same one) - and less stressful for the presenters themselves (a win-win situation).
Furthermore: I appreciate the evaluation via EvaSys and hope that you get feed back from all
participants. Also nice that you offered exercises and a script for download since the
beginning. All in all a very strong performance! Well done & bravo!”
(Webinar participant)
55
Participants’ voices

Contact:
Dorothea Lemke - Technical University of Munich E-Mail: dorothea.lemke@ub.tum.de
56
Questions & feedback
© Marita Müller / University Library of the Technical University of Munich

Waking up webinars: bringing active learning online - Lemke

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