This post is part of an occasional series “Advice from the Virtual Trenches” where we share real lessons learned when virtual and blended learning didn’t go as planned.

If you’ve ever attended a virtual learning event or webinar, you know that hiccups can and will happen. Access links may not work, audio may disconnect, video may freeze, background noise may disrupt instruction. Add in the element of human error, and the possibilities for technical difficulties become seemingly endless.

Thoughtful instructional design helps ensure that content presented in this learning environment aligns with platform capabilities. But instructional teams offer “on the ground” support and expertise to preemptively avoid and successfully troubleshoot these common modern learning challenges.

We asked our facilitators for their stories about how they handled it when things went wrong in the most unexpected ways. These stories serve as advice from the virtual trenches that you can take back to the job for insight into the possibilities of instructional adaptability!

When the InSync Training team reflects on the most successful modern learning experiences, one L&D professional holds a special place in our hearts: the virtual facilitator.

With nothing but their voices, access to technology, and their ingenuity, they literally bring learning to life.

Today, we celebrate their contributions to learning and performance in the first ever Virtual Facilitator Day! Every year, on the third Wednesday of June, we will take an entire day to honor their skills, commitment, and engagement.

Join the party by sharing your stories about extraordinary facilitators on Twitter with #VirtualFacilitatorDay. We know the impact of successful facilitation reaches far and wide, and we look forward to hearing about your experiences.

Coaching involves two very important parties:

• The coach
• The coachee

The relationship and interaction between these two individuals impacts the overall success of the process. Recently, the InSync team shared what skills make coaches effective: thoughtful questioning techniques, foundational models, and a personalized approach.

In the digital workplace, everything is monitored and recorded. It’s far easier to attribute the impact of an individual employee to the overall success of a company. This means that people analytics plays a huge role in how leaders develop their business strategy.

Performance management, in particular, seeks to optimize a workforce by cultivating talent, enhancing performance and productivity, and driving continued learning. Today’s workforce seeks to develop authentic, meaningful relationships between employees and managers, as well as opportunities for professional development and advancement. Performance management also influences learning and development (L&D).

Trainers must not only support learning objectives, but also business goals. More often than not, our stakeholders include our learners’ managers. Their involvement in our initiatives impact the outcomes we see.

In our experience, if managers undervalue components of a blend – for example, virtual classroom sessions – their teams will lack the necessary support and resources they need in order to successfully participate in learning activities.

The best bet for overcoming leadership leeriness? Training, of course!

Evaluating a learning program is by far the best way to highlight its value to all business stakeholders. It also bolsters a culture of continuous improvement.

Without measurable results, it's hard to convince the business community that its learning and development (L&D) offerings are effective. Or even necessary.

We spend a lot of time at InSync considering how to design, develop, and deliver great virtual and blended learning solutions.  But how do we know they are, indeed, GREAT?

Creating content is only half of the learning development story. The other half is developing a plan for evaluating the learning. This requires crafting tools used to gather feedback that informs whether learners actually learned, as well as to determine to what extent learners apply what they learned in the workplace. An evaluation should also include on-the-job feedback as learners use newly acquired skills and knowledge.

How do we engage the modern learner? This loaded question generates answers ranging from design, delivery, implementation, learning environment consideration. Those are all legitimate answers! Each aspect of the modern learning experience deserve consideration, if we want to get modern learners excited about the prospect of professional development.

Obviously, we want to incorporate the most impactful elements into our training programs. In thinking about the evolution of learning, and how humans generally learn, two factors stand out: collaboration and community.

A new year presents new opportunities for modern learning advancements. Undoubtedly, exciting technologies will emerge, and practitioners will identify creative and innovative ways to engage learners while working to reach organizational goals.

What does the next year hold? We don’t have a learning & development crystal ball, but based on some trusted sources, a few predictions give us hope for a productive and successful year.

And it may surprise you to learn that none of them relate directly to technology!

Another year has come and gone. This time of year encourages reflection, both personal and professional, causing the InSync Team to ask questions such as:

• What did I learn this year?
• How did training evolve?
• Which developments resonated with modern learners?
• Where did learning provide innovative value to our companies?

For us, 2018 marked a widespread shift towards truly blended learning. Organizations, learners, and practitioners alike began to embrace the possibility of building skills outside of formal events. Complex, purposeful, and at times frustrating, the evolution to the new blended reality required us all to consider a handful of key elements: modern learners, engaging facilitation, comprehensive instructional design, and planning for the unexpected.