I think that instructor-led virtual training can either encourage or discourage participation and that it all comes down to your design. If you design participating into the course and actively use tools like chat that lead-by-example, students tend to use the tools more freely and have greater interaction. If on the other hand, you lock the tools down, or simply do not use them yourself, students tend to shy away taking their cue from the instructor as to what is acceptable and what is not.
For example, in the last two days a colleague and I have been delivering n overview class to groups of about 60 students. In each class the students were able to chat with anyone and use the annotation tools. In the first class, we repeated a few announcements in the chat panel, and received a few questions in the chat panel, but overall chat was not a big part of the presentation. In the second session, I welcomed each participant with a "good morning participant_name" in the chat. Also throughout the second session I added "extras" in the chat — nice to know but not essential information. As a result of my using the chat more fully, the students used it more fully. The chat was much more lively and conversational and when we got to the Q&A section we were nearly overwhelmed with the amount of chat questions that poured in! |