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6 Benefits of including live streaming into online training sessions

Online learning is what the whole world has been gearing towards ever since the digital revolution started. It only gaining speed as recent necessities shifted. It’s clear that this will be established as the norm in higher education and further on in corporate training.

Global teams, diverse employees, and the rise in work from home are all factors that make distance learning the best solution when it comes to L&D programs.


Read more: Working from home – good for both companies and employees


While e-learning is the go-to for most corporate educational interventions, every so often there is a need for live interaction and immediate responses. These instances are calling for collaborative live streaming.

6 Benefits of including live streaming into online training sessions

This is similar but not identical to the already established live meetings and has numerous advantages. Let’s explore some of them:

  1. A larger reach

    First and foremost, with live streaming, the audience can be a lot larger than in typical video conferences. Especially when there are subjects of great importance for everyone in the company, it’s best to approach presentations this way because it’s easier for employees to join regardless of where they are (as long as they have an internet connection).

    Of course, the question of time zones remains but it can be addressed by scheduling several sessions so that all that are interested can attend at fairly reasonable hours. Facilitators can use the established online social media platforms or, preferably, utilize the company’s infrastructure to deliver these live workshops or seminars.


    Read more: Things to consider when designing training to upskill remote workers


  2. A useful extension to e-learning

    No matter how well an e-learning module is designed, there are often questions and queries that are not easily answered by the resources or bibliography provided at the end of the course. In all fairness, modern learners have little patience to go through a lot of materials and prefer to get instant answers and exemplifications.

    Live streaming sessions can be established for employees who have completed certain learning paths and want to further their knowledge or make sure that what they have acquired is correct and they know how to use it in day to day professional tasks. These sessions can also act as great active recall triggers with the instructor asking questions and setting up challenges for the participants to solve.

  3. High degrees of interaction

    Most of today’s e-learning courses try to include numerous interactive activities. However, engaging as these are, there is a certain collaborative aspect they are missing, and live streaming sessions can easily bridge that gap.

    Especially with most employees working from home and missing all the daily human interaction they used to have in their professional offices, offering the possibility to work and learn with their peers is paramount.

    Today’s corporate learners are at least digitally savvy (if not digital natives) and feel comfortable using the online environment to connect and share with others. This natural behavior makes it easy to discuss best practices and learning take-aways – an adult-level show and tell that has a great positive impact on learning.

  4. Immediate feedback available

    The thing with live sessions is that instructors as well as L&D specialists can see right away what is working and what is lacking. For instance, if the session started with two hundred people watching and the numbers dropped significantly after the first quarter of an hour it’s clear that the subject is either not of interest or not presented engagingly enough.

    It’s easy to constantly monitor and optimize the live interventions and people are rather inclined to offer instant feedback when it is asked of them – they are more likely to answer a quick question on the spot than fill out an extensive form two days after a learning event. The information thus gathered is priceless and can help greatly improve corporate development programs.


    Read more: 3 Best practices for L&D surveys that can be applied right away


  5. Lower costs

    With cost-effectiveness on everyone’s agenda, it’s an important aspect to note. Live collaborative sessions do not require an expensive infrastructure or many pricy resources. Modern technology is in everyone’s hands nowadays and it’s easy both to broadcast a live streaming session and to participate in it.

    Since this is probably going to be the go-to for a while longer it’s a good idea to place at least a small investment in equipment for the L&D specialists that will coordinate these sessions but it’s totally doable on a minor budget - a decent camera, microphone, and some lighting supplies will prove sufficient.


    Read more: Top 3 tips for creating professional looking videos for training


  6. Mobility is guaranteed

    Last but not least, hosting live streaming sessions does not require your learners to be all in one place. And the present-day highly performing smartphones and tablets, they don’t even have to be stuck behind their desktops or laptops.

    As long as they are in a place with a good internet connection or have decent broadband in their mobile subscriptions they can virtually join in and learn from everywhere.

    Instructors too are granted the same level of freedom as they can work (provided with a bit more equipment than the participants) from their location of choice. It’s a win-win situation for all parties involved.


    Read more: The spectrum between synchronous and asynchronous training


Closing thoughts

Live streaming has many benefits for corporate learning as it acts as a welcome extension to e-learning modules and allows for real-time communication and collaboration. The fact that it is easily done and cost-effective only adds to the appeal of this modern teaching method.

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