Have you ever thought about presenting a webinar? Do you have some ideas or successes you think would be interesting to others? Want to add some new tech skills to your resume? Or just would like to give it a try?
Make presenting a webinar one of your 2019 New Year’s resolutions!
Presenting online has become a 21st century skill. Whether you are teaching online or giving a workshop, familiarity with online conferencing systems is useful. Common platforms are Skype, Zoom, join.me, Adobe Connect and Big Blue Button.
Here are some useful steps to help you get started:
Step 1: Write down your ideas. Create a slideshow. Make sure your slides are not too text heavy and include images.
Step 2: Check your equipment. Do you have access to a laptop? Headset with a mic? High speed internet?
Step 3: Get in touch with Tutela info@tutela.ca or the TESL Ontario webinar team webinar@teslontario.org to pitch your idea. If it is your first time, it’s better to have support.
Step 4: Do a run through with your moderator to check your equipment, get feedback on your slides and play around with some of the tools like the polling feature.
Step 5: Deliver your first webinar! It’s that easy! Add it to your resume and start planning the next one to build on the skills you have gained.
Here
are some tips from TCET’s Susan Webb, taken from her Tech Know session at TESL
Ontario:
TIP #1: Clean Slide Formatting for Text: Use a sans-serif font for main text
–easy to read.
Tip #2: Design Information Wisely: Less Text, More Graphics
TIP #3: Organization & Structure: Start with an agenda and end with a
summary.
TIP #4: Smooth Delivery: Speak at moderate pace, limit “fillers”
TIP #5: Use Features & Activities likes Polls and Multi-User Whiteboards!
Interested in learning more about the tech tools you can use to make your session more interactive? Check out the Tutela Webinar “Ever Wonder about Webinars” by the webinar queen Jen Artan. See you online!
If you have presented a webinar through Tutela or TESL ON, please share your experience and know-how in the response section.
Diane Ramanathan has been a LINC Home Study instructor with The Centre for Education and Training since Feb 2014. She is also a part-time professor for the TESL program at Algonquin College.
4 Comments
These are some great tips! One tip I’d also give is to open your own practice room in Tutela, and do your own complete run through at least once or twice. Record it, and listen back. This gets you more familiar with how you’re going to say what you plan to deliver, and then when you present in front of an audience, you are already versed on how you will deliver the content. Plus you can listen to your jokes before you actually say them, then make that final decision on whether or not to include them.
So speaketh the Webinar Queen… although, I prefer Webinar Wizard. Or Webinar Overlord. Hm, what about Webinar WonderWoman?
Ooohhhhh….Webinar Wonder Woman has a nice ring to it 🙂
Best to vet those jokes, to be sure.
Thank you for this post, Diane.
It is due to webinars (presenting and moderating) thatvive gotten over the sound of my voice and feel at ease with mics.
I will add to Jen’s post: recording yourself and playing it back alerts you to some of the speech fillers you use, the mic quality, and you also hear how quickly you may speak.
In addition to recording yourself, my other recommendation : have a moderator run through the presentation with you, or ask a critical friend for advice on presentation materials. Audiences differ, as do their needs, and an additional eye helps immensely. My best webinar experiences have been with Magdalene Shin, Althea Raymond, Jen Artan, and Celia Aponte-de-Hanna, as my moderators. Their feedback on my run-throughs were invaluable.