We are feeling the effects of the coronavirus on a daily basis and in all areas of life. Public life is largely shut down, restaurants, bars, cultural institutions and other meeting places remain closed and events have to be canceled or postponed – always with the uncertainty of how the situation will develop and how long we will have to live with the restrictions.

Despite this uncertainty – or precisely because of this uncertainty – it is important that we overcome our state of shock and, instead of waiting and enduring, actively find ways to deal with the current situation. In times when personal contact has to be avoided, going digital can offer a solution. Events of almost every kind are now taking place online: Concerts, parties, conferences, church services and, last but not least, teaching events.

Of course, digital learning and teaching was already a forward-looking topic with enormous potential even before the coronavirus – we at teejit are particularly aware of this. But it is just as clear that many people are now forced to take a closer look at the topic of eLearning for the first time and are wondering how they can move their planned face-to-face event into the digital space.

Whether you already have experience in organizing online courses and are looking for inspiration or are a complete novice, I would like to introduce you to a selection of tools that can help you organize your face-to-face event online.

Structure

You had planned a workshop (or a series of workshops). You had a location in mind that not only had a seminar room but also several group rooms for working in small teams. Of course, you had also created different learning materials for the participants in a workbook and because you know how important this is, you also planned enough time for the participants to exchange ideas directly with each other.

The task now is to transfer these four elements into the digital space in a meaningful and user-friendly way. Fortunately, there are suitable tools for all of them. Depending on what you want your workshop to look like, it doesn’t always have to be four tools.

Seminar room

In the seminar room, you usually pass on your knowledge to the participants. Speaking up and asking questions are encouraged, because frontal teaching is boring. Of course, you don’t face the wall, but look directly at your participants and they at you. The right tools for your digital seminar room are therefore video messengers with space for questions and requests to speak.

An example of such a messenger is MS Teams. In addition to a video and text chat function, you can also share your screen with participants or take control of individual participants. There is also a practical note function.

In contrast to comparable tools such as Zoomwhich runs on US servers, Microsoft guarantees storage on servers located in Germany and is therefore largely harmless in terms of data protection.

As part of the premium version of Microsoft’s Office, MS Teams cannot normally be used free of charge. However, in response to the coronavirus crisis, Microsoft is offering the service free of charge for up to 6 months.

Other tools that can offer you a digital seminar room:

Group room

In group rooms, workshop participants can coordinate with each other, distribute tasks and, depending on the scope of the workshop, also manage larger projects. In concrete terms, digital group rooms are project management tools.

We have been working in our team for a long time with Asana for a long time and have had very good experiences with it. It is particularly suitable for medium-sized and larger projects. Task areas and tasks can be created, assigned and scheduled at various levels. Asana is available free of charge for teams of up to 15 members.

Similar tools are:

  • Trello – Compared to Asana, Trello is somewhat leaner in terms of features and functions, but therefore also pleasantly uncomplicated and especially recommended for smaller teams and projects.
  • Airtable – Project management in table form. Excel enthusiasts in particular will have a lot of fun with Airtable.

Workbook

In the workbook, you collect learning material for the participants, which you make available to them during the workshop. Simple solutions here are cloud storage such as Google Drive or Microsoft OneDrive. Participants can either download the files provided here or work on them together as a team. Tests and exercises can also be improvised in this way.

A more elegant, albeit possibly more complex solution for you as a teacher, is offered by learning management tools such as ILIAS or OpenOLAT. With these tools, you can not only make learning material available to your participants in the form of files, but also create the aforementioned tests and exercises, answer questions transparently for everyone in the forum and more.

Direct exchange

Among other things, a workshop thrives on the exchange between participants. What we simply do with our mouths at face-to-face events naturally requires a tool in the digital space. Even if almost all of the tools already mentioned here also include features for communication, it can also make sense to agree on an instant messenger that enables quick and direct contact.

If already used elsewhere, the respective video messenger, which all also have a text chat function, is of course a good option here. If all participants already use Whatsapp or Telegram , these can also be a useful channel.

Questions? Suggestions? Criticism?

If you have any questions on this topic, please contact me directly using the form below. If you know of any particularly useful tools that have not been mentioned here, or if you have any criticism, please leave a comment!

#stayhome #staysafe and best regards

Moritz