Create Measurable eLearning Courses from your Virtual Classroom Sessions

Introduction

Over the past three years, delivery of training and education with virtual classroom and meeting room technologies has increased by more than 300%. Many organizations have attempted to leverage meeting room technologies (Zoom, WebEx, MS Teams, etc.) to provide virtual classroom learning.

Unfortunately, many organizations have learned the hard way that meeting room technologies are not designed for delivering education and training. The organizations that have elected to use these types of technologies have reported dismal results and missed the opportunity to create a library of eLearning lessons from their virtual classroom sessions. While these meeting room technologies do produce recorded videos of the sessions, these videos have proven to be of no value for education and training purposes. Students do not receive measurable learning from meeting room replay videos. The reasons include:

• Students cannot engage or interact with a replay video. There is no interactivity or opportunity for the student to measure their progress and achievements.
• Program administrators have no way to know if a student is comprehending the information being delivered or even paying attention to replay videos provided to supplement learning or satisfy the requirement for students that were unable to attend the live session.
• Replay videos do not support tactile learners. Without the ability for the student to participate in the learning activity, these types of learners do not absorb or retain learning content.
• Student performance on final exams delivered following student completion of a meeting room replay video has been dismal.

The Solution

Virtual classroom systems are designed to support education and training. They provide the tools required to engage learners and measure student achievement during the learning session. True virtual classroom technologies leverage the interactive elements delivered during a live virtual classroom session to produce interactive eLearning courses. These eLearning lessons achieve results comparable to in-class instruction. These technologies also offer significant cost savings by enabling organizations to deliver live sessions and then leverage the eLearning lesson generated for an unlimited number of future students.

“If the technology that your organization is using to deliver virtual classroom sessions cannot produce measurable eLearning courses from each live session, then you should consider upgrading.”

How Virtual Classroom Technologies Work

During preparation for a virtual classroom session, instructors develop or assign interactive content to be used during the session to engage learners and measure incremental progress. The elements used are normally short in duration and designed to enable all students to independently complete the elements when delivered by the instructor. A few examples of these types of activities include:

• Periodic (in-session) quizzes, flashcards and exams that produce weighted scores that can be used to determine a student’s grade.
• Micro-lessons that students interact with and produce a weighted score that can be leveraged to determine a student’s final completion status or grade.
• Competitive games that enable students to demonstrate learning achievement and receive recognition.
• Scavenger hunts, supported by visual and audio media that engage learners and provide an opportunity for them to demonstrate what they have learned.
• Equipment, process and software simulations that enable student to interact with the instructor during a presentation and exercise skills obtained during the session that can be leveraged to determine a student’s final completion status or grade.

Click here to review an eLearning course generated by a virtual classroom system with examples of each of the above elements.

After the session is complete, virtual classroom technologies assemble an eLearning course that replicates the experience of the live session attendee. On-demand eLearning students complete all activities delivered during the live event as if they were actually present. The benefits of using a virtual classroom system are enormous. Some of the benefits include:

• Student in-progress scores are recorded based on their achievements.
• Remediation is provided for students that fail to achieve required benchmarks.
• Program administrators know which students comprehend the information being delivered.
• The eLearning lessons can be used to supplement learning or satisfy the requirement for students that were unable to attend the live session.

The eLearning lessons generated by virtual classroom systems provide detailed information for each student that completes them, just like any true eLearning lesson would provide. This approach not only provides a measurable experience for the students; it enables program administrators to address deficiencies in the instruction and materials delivered during live session events.

Summary

Every major study has shown that remote/virtual learning programs delivered using virtual meeting room technologies (Zoom, WebEx, MS Teams, etc.) produced significant declines in student achievement. Many organizations actually lowered their student passing thresholds as a direct result of their use of meeting room technologies for delivery of training and education. The organizations that have elected to use meeting room technologies have missed the opportunity to create a library of eLearning lessons from their virtual classroom sessions. The organizations that have elected to leverage virtual classroom technologies have not only been able to create a library of supplemental eLearning lessons for their students, they have also been able to provide suitable lessons for those students that were unable to attend the live virtual classroom session.

Virtual classroom technologies are not more expensive than virtual meeting room technologies. For an organization responsible for the conduct and measurement of education and training, they provide a significant return on investment that meeting room technologies cannot provide.

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About KMSI

KMSI provides learning, talent and performance management software solutions, Internet application hosting and professional services. Our service teams are managed by industry leaders implementing proven processes designed to be leveraged across practices. KMSI has designed performance improvement strategies for many of the largest organizations in the world. KMSI provides training development, instructional content conversion and other specialty and implementation services. Visit www.kmsi.com to learn more.

About KMxLive

KMxLive is exciting new cloud-based virtual classroom technology that provides features that are not available from any competitive supplier:

• KMxLive enables instructors to deliver exams, simulations, games, surveys,eLearning lessons and other interactive elements during a live event.
• KMxLive provides instructors with detailed student progress, scores, attentiveness and other information in real-time.
• KMxLive event replays are not videos. KMxLive event replays are immersive eLearning courses that enable students to complete all elements delivered during the live event as if they were there.
• KMxLive records participant progress, scores, session times and completion results to any Learning Management System (LMS) without integration.
• For customers that do not have an LMS, KMxLive provides extensive reporting features and generates participant email invitations.

Visit www.KMxLive.com to learn more.