Courtney P.K. 2:19 am on July 15, 2022

Brainstorming: Best practices for hosting Online Workshops

It’s been a while since the handbook page about hosting Online Workshops was originally published (in November 2021) — the team has hosted over 125 events since then! In the time that has passed since publishing that handbook page, I imagine that we’ve all learned a lot about hosting Online Workshops and what makes them run well.

So far, the tips and best practices that the handbook covers are:

Arrive early
Turn on accessibilityAccessibility Accessibility (commonly shortened to a11y) refers to the design of products, devices, services, or environments for people with disabilities. The concept of accessible design ensures both “direct access” (i.e. unassisted) and “indirect access” meaning compatibility with a person’s assistive technology (for example, computer screen readers). (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Accessibility) features
Consider Icebreakers
Set Expectations
Conclude

Have you hosted an Online Workshop? Or have you attended an Online Workshop that you feel went well? I would love to hear your thoughts on some more tips and best practices for hosting Online Workshops so we can update the handbook page with them. Please share in the comments!

Ross Wintle 9:42 am on July 15, 2022
I co-hosted with @psykro recently and took some notes.
- (On Mac) Ensure Zoom has video, mic and screen-share permissions before you start, otherwise you have to grant those permissions and then restart Zoom. In general: test your tech beforehand!!
- Ways to avoid Zoom-bombing:
  - In the participants list, don’t allow guests to start video.
    
    Have a co-host/moderator
    
    I also tried asking late-comers if they were here for the workshop using private chat (you can chat to just people in the waiting room)
    
    Be familiar with where the “Remove” participant button is!
- Explain how and when to ask questions (if you want people to). The “raise hand” feature works well.
- Courtney P.K. 1:09 am on July 23, 2022
  
  Thank you sharing your insight @magicroundabout!
Benjamin Evans 4:26 am on July 19, 2022

Having a co-host/buddy is essential! A co-host can let folks in, respond to things needing immediate action in the chat, and look for and present related information to what the speaker is talking about. A buddy can also direct the speaker’s attention to any questions that have come in at an appropriate lull in the session, reducing the stress a speaker might feel to keep an eye on everything while presenting.

I also like sharing my slides with folks as soon as the presentation starts. If folks are slower or quicker on any topic, they can flip through the slides at their own pace throughout the session.
- Courtney P.K. 1:12 am on July 23, 2022
  
  I agree with you on a co-host/buddy being essential! I learned that pretty quickly after I had tried conducting some other online talks on my own.
  
  Sharing your slides ahead of time is a great idea! I have been sharing them at the end, but if folks have them to refer to at their own pace that’s even better.
Wes Theron 8:03 am on July 19, 2022
Here are a few things I have learned:
- Remember to give your co-host the permissions they need to assist you throughout the online workshop.
- Don’t go too fast as some people struggle following. Repeating yourself or repeating certain steps help solidify what is being taught.
- Don’t get derailed by questions. Stick to your agenda, but make time to answer questions and trust other attendees and the co-host to answer questions while you are busy presenting.
- Many people learn visually, so it is helpful to include as many demos and examples as possible in your presentation.
- The polls function in Zoom work well if you plan ahead and add questions in advance.
- Courtney P.K. 1:14 am on July 23, 2022
  
  Don’t go too fast as some people struggle following. Repeating yourself or repeating certain steps help solidify what is being taught.
  
  This is really good advice. I worry about repeating myself too much but there is really no harm in doing so. 🙂
Sarah Snow 11:42 pm on July 19, 2022
Some best practices I haven’t seen mentioned yet:
- Start with a hook: how can you grab learner’s attention? I love using question hooksHooks In WordPress theme and development, hooks are functions that can be applied to an action or a Filter in WordPress. Actions are functions performed when a certain event occurs in WordPress. Filters allow you to modify certain functions. Arguments used to hook both filters and actions look the same. to engage learners, but I also like to use a “hook” to make sure everyone has figured out how to use the chat, speak aloud, or practice using any other Zoom features you might include in a lesson.
- Plan questions in throughout your presentation to make the space more interactive — these questions can be yes/no, opinion questions, or have a “right” answer, but the more you can invite people to share their brilliance and questions, the better!
- Meet people where they are; you can ask a question on MeetupMeetup All local/regional gatherings that are officially a part of the WordPress world but are not WordCamps are organized through https://www.meetup.com/. A meetup is typically a chance for local WordPress users to get together and share new ideas and seek help from one another. Searching for ‘WordPress’ on meetup.com will help you find options in your area. when people sign up to ask what people already know about a topic, what they want to learn, or anything else. Plan your Zoom Workshop around this to personalize this space to each group of learners.
- Plan a pre-assessment and post-assessment question, such as: “On a scale of 1-5, 1 being ‘nothing’ and 5 being ‘everything’, how much would you say you already know about X topic?” If you ask the same question twice, you can measure growth from what people write in the chat.
- Plan Closure: At the end of a presentation, ask people what they are going to do with what they learned. Their responses may surprise you!
- If you’re nervous, it’s okay to pre-record sections, or use existing Workshops / Resources to help scaffold learning. Not everyone knows how Learn works–they find us through meetup, so it’s okay and encouraged to use resources that already exist.
- Consider using existing lesson plans on learn.wordpress.orgWordPress.org The community site where WordPress code is created and shared by the users. This is where you can download the source code for WordPress core, plugins and themes as well as the central location for community conversations and organization. https://wordpress.org/ as inspiration and material for future Live Workshops. These are resources you are allowed and encouraged to use, so if you’re not sure where to start, check those lesson plans out!
I’m happy to expand on any of these, but this is what popped into my head. 🙂
- Courtney P.K. 1:17 am on July 23, 2022
  
  Really really solid advice and tips @arasae, thank you! 🙂
  
  Your experimentation with the format of online workshops is really inspirational! I like the idea to use resources that exist, I may just try that sometime soon.
Oneal Rosero 11:54 am on July 21, 2022

I help facilitate and run the #WPDiversity workshops outside the AMER timezones, one of the things we did was to have a checklist for things to do before, during, and after. some are done immediately, while in some situations you have tasks that have to be done up to 1-2 weeks before and after the workshop.

There are also specific tasks for the host, co-host, and volunteers, such as letting people in the zoom, greeting newcomers, and contributing to the discussion when it is silent. We also meet with the volunteers 15 minutes before the start of the workshop to discuss responsibilities and test the presentation.

One of the other things that helps is to have a poll to see the attendee’s familiarity with the subject or their comfort level in speaking.
Also, since these workshops are for the #WPDiversity team, You also need to ask the group if they are okay if the session being recorded. if only one person says no, then we do not record at all. This is in case they share something that can be sensitive for some community members.
- Courtney P.K. 1:18 am on July 23, 2022
  
  Your perspective from facilitating the WP Diversity workshops is really helpful, thank you @onealtr! I like the idea for checklists, perhaps we can add that to this section of the handbook.
  - Oneal Rosero 10:10 am on July 25, 2022
    
    Another thing I like to do before the workshop, especially since we do global attendance, is to make sure I get the right pronunciation of people’s names. sometimes I ask the attendees right before the workshop. or when they introduce themselves to the group.
    This works only if it’s a small group. If you have a larger group, it helps to do this during breakout sessions.
Courtney P.K. 1:32 am on July 26, 2022

Thank you to all those who have shared their tips so far! I have added them to the “Hosting an Online Workshop” page in the handbook, but I will leave the comments on this post open for more folks to leave their tips in the future.
Kathryn P. 5:38 pm on August 1, 2022
Hey there, so many great points so far.

I moderated some workshops recently and the presenters found that quite helpful, so wanted I’d share some thoughts around that.

Firstly, you may be wondering why it’s a good idea to have a second person helping with the workshop; couldn’t a single person do everything? Having a helper/moderator is beneficial for a number of reasons, some of which have already been mentioned above. It lets the host focus on presenting the workshop – without having to worry about missing a question in the chat, troubleshooting participants’ Zoom technical issues, getting derailed by an unrelated question, or admitting people from the waiting room.

Here are some things that went well:
- Presenter should make the helper/moderator a Zoom co-host. That way, they can automatically take over the workshop should something happen that causes the host to leave the call. Also, as co-host, the moderator can take on the task of admitting people from the waiting room, which avoids the host getting distracted by, or forgetting about this task, especially after the workshop has started.
- The moderator can remind the host to do key things like set the workshop to Focus Mode (to avoid Zoom-bombing), and turn on live captions/transcription – or even do those tasks themselves if needed.
- The moderator can answer questions in the chat as they come up, but also verbally bring to the host’s attention questions that would be better answered by the presenter over voice/screenshare. It worked well when the host took during several intentionally planned breaks during their presentation to allow time for questions. (Rather than waiting until the very end.)
- If the moderator spots something on screen that isn’t working/could be improved, bring it to the host’s attention verbally. For example, a typical example might be that the text is too small to read on screen, so the moderator could interrupt to ask the presenter to increase the size before too much time passes.
- The host should prepare a list of links from the presentation and provide it to the moderator ahead of time. This lets the moderator drop the appropriate links into the chat at just the right moments, when the relevant item is being discussed.
- The same list of accompanying links can also be posted as a comment in the Meetup.com event, and included alongside the video on wordpress.tv, learn.wordpress.orgWordPress.org The community site where WordPress code is created and shared by the users. This is where you can download the source code for WordPress core, plugins and themes as well as the central location for community conversations and organization. https://wordpress.org/, and anywhere else it’s posted.
- I’ll also add that I found it helps for the moderator to have at least some basic understanding of the subject being covered. For example, I know child themes very well, and that definitely helped me answer more questions in chat in that particular workshop than I would otherwise have been able to. But during the plugins workshop, although I’m not a developer myself, I was still able to answer most of the questions in chat because I knew just enough. For workshops where we’re unfamiliar with the topic, it might be useful to go through the presenter’s slide deck ahead of time, and ask the host questions before the workshop, if needed.
Other things I haven’t done myself but might consider for the future, depending on the host and the topic:
- Help fill in “dead air” – i.e. if participants aren’t asking questions – with some pre-prepared questions or comments.
- Bring it to the presenter’s attention if a key point in their presentation was inadvertently overlooked.
- Keep time and let presenter know if they need to speed things up to stay on time.
Hope these are helpful!
- Courtney P.K. 6:32 pm on August 10, 2022
  
  Thank you @zoonini! I’ve integrated your tips into the handbook page. 🙂

Welcome

Meetings (Calendar)

Brainstorming: Best practices for hosting Online Workshops

Welcome

Meetings (Calendar)

Share this: