Technology Leadership Academy - An Online Learning Experience

By Lasa Information Systems Team

During April 2011, Lasa's Head of Technology Services Aba Maison attended NTEN’s (Nonprofit Technology Enterprise Network) nine–week online Technology Leadership Academy. In this article, she tells us about the curriculum and how the course worked.

The course aimed to help build the technology decision-making skills of senior managers in non-profit organisations. Such strategic oversight helps organisations align their use of technology with delivering their mission and vision – it’s not just something to “leave to the techies”. Technology can be so much more than the infrastructure that keeps organisations running, and the mechanics of keeping it all working…

To be eligible, participants had to sign up their CEO, so for 9 weeks I joined Lasa’s CEO Terry Stokes, in a virtual classroom on Wednesday and Friday (yes Friday!) evenings…

What we covered

The course started with orientation and ended with evaluation. In between there were 7 core sessions covering:

• IT Planning and Implementation
• Introduction to IT and Systems
• Information Management Systems
• Effective Internet Presence
• Technology ROI
• The Human Side of Technology
• The Future of IT

How it was delivered

The elements of the course included:

• A discussion list
• Weekly “core session” (1.5 hour webinar)
• Online quiz
• Weekly peer learning session (1 hour webinar)
• Resource Library for session materials
• Evaluation

The course was mainly delivered via a series of webinars using Readytalk as the platform. Participants were issued with a PIN to use with the free phone number to access the audio portion of the webinar, and a link to a web page to participate in the visual portion.

Before each core session, a discussion question on the upcoming topic was set, and participants chipped in with their thoughts via an email list.

During the core session, various speakers presented slides on their given topic with time for a bit of Q&A at the end. Session materials were posted to the group library and webinar recordings made available.
 
Core sessions were followed by a peer learning session. Here participants (over 80 of us) were split into groups and sent off to “virtual rooms” to discuss issues we had in common. Then we returned to the larger group to feed back.

Evaluation surveys followed each core / peer learning event, and importantly, subsequent sessions were often tweaked based on participant feedback.

The experience

Firstly congratulations to NTEN for putting on such a useful and well thought out programme. Delivering training online is not easy, and they did a good job of preparing for individual sessions and the programme as a whole.

Staying engaged

As a learner, it’s easy to get distracted during a webinar whether participating from the office or at home. As a presenter / host, the challenge is to keep participants engaged, when you can’t see them and get visual clues that minds are elsewhere…

Then there’s the matter of familiarity with the technology, technical hitches (most people participating, presenting or running the session were not in the same physical location!)…

Thorough preparation on the part of the hosts helped limit the impact of these issues. As a participant, finding a quiet space and treating the sessions as you would a face to face event definitely helps with the concentration.

Presentations

During the core sessions there were various ways of interacting for example by responding to polls, using the software’s “raise your hand” feature so the host could invite you to un-mute your phone and speak to the group, or by typing questions into a chat window.

The host’s role was to manage all this input and keep the sessions moving along. The presenters, to varying degrees created opportunities for these interchanges, and the sessions I got the most out of were those with a higher level of interactivity. Being talked at for an hour face to face is hard enough, more so in a virtual environment.

Virtual breakout rooms

What didn’t work as well for me were the breakout groups in the peer learning sessions. This, I assume, was partly a limitation of the webinar software.

It was easy enough to split people into groups according to interest, for example by doing a poll during the session (or a survey ahead of the session which worked much better). Once in the “rooms” however, it was difficult without any visual clues as to who else was in the room with you, or when was a good time to pipe up. Initially, people were either completely silent waiting for someone else to speak, or all trying to chip in at the same time. This meant valuable discussion minutes were often lost and some frustration for those in the group. A “raise your hand” or text chat facility in the room might have helped here.

Nevertheless, once discussion did get going it was fruitful albeit short, and it was great to share experiences with a wide range of people.

What to points mean? Prizes!

Participation points were awarded for responding to the discussion questions, attending sessions, completing quizzes and evaluation surveys, providing participants with a bit of extra incentive to join in fully. With the points earned, we got the opportunity to attend additional webinars for free.

Final thoughts

All in all I got a great deal out of the experience. Both from the point of view of the learning the course was designed to deliver, and understanding what’s involved in running a webinar well.

With cuts in funding and all of us having to do more with less, webinars can be a great way of extending reach to learners who would be unable to spare the time or money to attend a face to face event. It’s not just a matter of taking what you do in a physical classroom and delivering it via the web though, and as a learner there are also some adjustments to make in order to get the most out of online training.