At Chati, we strive to create the most impactful and engaging online learning experiences for everyone. We wholeheartedly believe that personal engagement matters in online education and is critical to its success. Our platform promotes online educational communities that foster connectivity and inclusivity for everyone. Here, we offer a step-by-step guide to setting the stage for engaging online learning, which includes establishing goals and objectives, targeting the right audience, incorporating multimedia aspects, and much more.   

When building your online learning experience, defining the critical elements of online engagement will ensure your attendees have the most successful and engaging experience possible. These online engagement elements include social, emotional, collaborative, behavioral, and cognitive engagement. Understanding how these elements work together can ensure a successful online learning experience for everyone.  

Another aspect to consider when building your virtual education event is recognizing the benefits of engaged online learning, which includes flexibility regarding both time and potential workspaces and reduces financial obligations commonly incurred when attending an in-person event, seminar, or educational session.   

Setting clear objectives and goals is the first step in achieving successful online experiences. Your goals form the foundation for organizing your online experience, including webinars and virtual or hybrid events. For instance, is the objective to build your brand, attendance numbers, or something else? Setting clear objectives and goals will ensure a seamless online learning experience for everyone.   

For any speaking engagement, the first rule is to know your audience, and creating online learning experiences is no different. For instance, is your target audience from industry or academia? Entry-level employees, seasoned industry professionals, undergraduates, or graduate students? What are their objectives for this online learning experience? Are they attending to gain knowledge or network? These questions are key to understanding your target audience, enabling you to create a successful and engaging online experience for everyone.  

Once you've understood your target audience, the next step is designing engaging content, which you can do by incorporating multimedia, videos, and simulations to give your attendees the most engaging experience possible. Examples include Q&A sessions, breakout rooms, one-on-one chat sessions, speaking engagements, interactive videos, quizzes, polls, gamification, and more. Incorporating multimedia into your online experience creates an environment that offers creativity, inclusivity, and knowledge-sharing for everyone.  

The overarching goal of any online learning experience is to foster collaboration and peer interaction, regardless of the brand goals and objectives you established beforehand. Through this, you establish an environment where inclusivity and engagement are at the forefront of your online learning experience, where individuals from all over the world can come together and share knowledge for the betterment of everyone.  

One way to accomplish this is through implementing discussion boards and virtual group activities, which allow your attendees to share knowledge and engage in either a small or large group setting. Through this, your attendees can engage in a comfortable environment of their choosing, which will enhance the online learning experience. 

An important step to ensure a seamless online learning experience is formatting content for online consumption, as online experiences can differ from in-person experiences. There is a common feeling among virtual event attendees of experiencing a lack of connection. You can overcome this by implementing microlearning and bite-sized sessions since losing focus in an online environment is easy. Examples include having short paragraphs and using bullets, lists, and tables instead of long sentences and paragraphs in your presentations. Avoid using fancy lettering like italics and uppercase, and use boldface to highlight key parts of sentences.   

To complement the multimedia aspect discussed above, hosting live webinars, virtual lectures, and synchronous sessions will help make your online learning experience much more engaging and successful for everyone. These offer an extra layer of interaction that might not be accomplished through Q&A or live chat sessions, as the goal is to enhance engagement with as many tools as possible.  

To ensure the most successful online learning experience possible, tracking learner interaction and participation metrics is one way to ensure your attendees are engaging and connecting at levels that will enable them to achieve their networking and knowledge-sharing goals. As discussed above, you can track metrics through artificial intelligence software or even live chats with support channels. You can also use your virtual event platforms' built-in analytics systems. For instance, Chati offers an analytics dashboard that lets you monitor real-time event performance. 

All events require feedback for improvement, and obtaining constructive feedback on assessments by your attendees will ensure the success of future online learning experiences. Try sending post-event surveys and emails immediately after the event or at a later date, as your attendees might have additional input and be given more time to consider the event.   

Another way to gain timely feedback is through virtual office hours and online support channels. Through this, your attendees can have the chance to share feedback one-on-one with appropriate personnel without waiting for an email response sometime later.   

This step-by-step guide will help empower you to create engaging online learning experiences for individuals from a myriad of diverse backgrounds, personally and professionally. With the right goals and objectives, tools, and execution, you will enable your attendees to foster connections and build relationships through the power of online learning experiences, which will lead to enhanced inclusivity and connectivity for everyone.   

Sources: Times Higher Education, LinkedIn, Empire State University