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Experiences of virtual training

Hi,

 

We've had a question about delivering virtual training from one of our JMP Partners in the UK. I would appreciate any useful advice that you can offer:

 

Given the Covid19 crisis we have a number of clients asking us about delivering our training remotely (using ZOOM or similar)

 

Have you (or anyone else) in JMP had experience of doing this

 

I guess it’s much more than a demo – it’s about having instructor led exercises. In the classroom normally we would have delegates following on their laptops what I was doing on the screen. The parallel in Zoom would be some sort of split screen option but I haven’t yet explored how that would/could work. Just wondering if you guys had already solved that problem…..

 

Any thoughts much appreciated

Re: Experiences of virtual training

Regarding technology, I would certainly look at ManyCam. Alternatives are available, but I like this one because it's Mac and Windows. It can do all of those 'picture in picture' things that you are used to seeing in the old European Explorer events, Phil, and much more. But whatever technology, there's no substitute for bandwidth and good lightning.

 

I think instructional design for virtual delivery is much harder, and would need careful thought.

Re: Experiences of virtual training

We've been running Live Web classes for fifteen years. We switched to the Zoom platform last year. We converted all our classroom classes to Live Web last month, both public and on-site classes. We have been mentoring through Live Web during this period, too.

 

A standard set up is to control Zoom and prepare material on the laptop display. The participant list and chat list also remain on the laptop display. We share the external display. There we move JMP or slide shows to the external monitor (second display). We always have a SAS Education Technical Support as a co-host and another instructor as a co-host. We have not been successful using one display as the instructor or the student. The experience for both considerably degrades.

 

We strongly discourage students from following along while we teach or demonstrate JMP. This is a powerful component of training but it just doesn't work well in Zoom. We provide a Virtual Lab with the proper version of JMP and course files set up and ready to go. This way, too, we can shadow students in trouble. It also means that we do not waste time at the beginning of class getting ready. These professional students might have PhDs, but they are like grade school children who do not listen or follow pre-class instructions. It doesn't matter that we told them. They didn't do it!

Re: Experiences of virtual trainingThanks, Ian. I agree that PIP and other "gimmicks" like that are all useful for keeping the audience engaged.Re: Experiences of virtual trainingThanks, Mark.

So to summarise:
1. Use an extra screen to manage Zoom and prepared content
2. Have additional people as co-hosts for technical support and alternate instructors
3. Ask students not to follow along with demonstrations

So I assume that you have time for students to work through exercises themselves. How do they ask for help, if they need it? Do they use chat/Q&A facility or do they use audio? Do you have some way of checking on their progress or do you just leave it to them to ask?Re: Experiences of virtual training

Yes, we provide a break period with an exercise.

 

We also use the Polls feature regularly and frequently to motivate engagement and participation.

 

Good question. I forgot to remark about questions. We use the Zoom Chat window. It works well but a best practice is for students to address Everyone. This way the whole class can see the question and the answer. Even if the instructor answers the question orally, the whole class knows the question. We discovered early on that sending private chats does not work well for anybody.

 

In some cases the question is such that we ask the student to un-mute their audio and ask the instructor the question. This way works very well but we find most students prefer to send questions via Chat.

Re: Experiences of virtual training

I would encourage you to work with your local SAS Education office as the LiveWeb approach to training is global now, and they should have resources and experience to help you. As Mark mentioned, all of the SAS Education courses were designed with LiveWeb in mind!

Re: Experiences of virtual trainingThanks, Dan.
SAS Education in the UK have also told us about LiveWeb and how JMP training partners can rent the online training environment. It sounds like it might be a good solution for this partner organisation.
Cheers,
PhilRe: Experiences of virtual training

We all have different learning styles, and teachers have different teaching styles. 

I ask all my live web students if they have a large monitor, and would like to follow along with every demonstration I do. I think my students get more out of it if they are clicking along with me rather than just watching me. 

 

With zoom, you can make the window not be full screen, and have JMP running beside the demo - like this attached picture. 

 

You have to go slower in JMP so that they can see where you are clicking, and I state the item I am selecting and pause before clicking run on any dialog box. Some students will not be proficient in JMP enough to keep up, but most will do every demonstration. 

 

 

Re: Experiences of virtual training

Thanks, Ledi.

 

That sounds like a great approach.

 

I guess that, as well as individual preferred teaching/learning styles, it will also depend a lot on the number of students in the class.

 

Cheers,

Phil