Geschreven door Peter van der Reijden | June 20, 2012
In mediatraining or presentation trainings, participants are often recorded on camera. If you’ve ever participated in such a training, you’ve experienced firsthand that seeing yourself on video is confrontational. And fun. And scary. And above all: incredibly informative.
Below you find some advice on how to make the best use of this mechanism and overcome potential challenges. Because essentially, TrainTool is about bringing this learning activity to many more trainings and many more people.
Make it safe
The lens of a camera makes people more self-conscious than they would be anyway. So safety is their first concern.
In a classroom, this means addressing the issue and getting everyone’s commitment to take each other seriously. Because, you’ll be next anyway...
Online training has one big benefit: people decide which recording they send in! So only they witness their first blunders. Nobody will laugh and they get the chance to try again and again, until they are satisfied. It’s a safe mechanism in itself.
But online there’s a different issue to address: YouTube. Make sure that only the participant decides who gets to see his or her recording.
Make it mandatory
I use a webcam interaction assignment in all my conversations with potential clients. And I insist they try it, although they rarely want to. Yes, even to the point that it gets akward. But I insist because everyone (yes: everyone) immediately feels the impact. And liked it: it’s a small achievement to get out of your comfort zone.
This will happen with your participants as well. They will hesitate. It pulls them out of their comfort zone and when as they are already busy, that’s not something they’ll look forward to.
But I promise, the impact and self-learning effects will make up for it. Make it mandatory. Make sure they send in at least 3 of the assignments. They’ll thank you for it.