We asked our members what they were doing since mid-March to create and facilitate online learning, training and support opportunities for youth leaders, youth workers and youth work organisations. Here we share our experiences with reflections, challenges, success and questions. This the 4th part of blog posts where we collect training practices in response to COVID-19 impact on international youth work mobility. Read the 1st part, 2nd part and 3rd part in the series.

MarCus Vrecer

Activity: Let’s talk about Mental Health – online seminar

Date: May 11th – 13th, 10:30am – 3.15pm daily

Participants: 80 participants from 35+ countries, 2 main moderators, 2 hosts, 7 facilitators, 7 speakers, 2 technical staff 

Link: fb group

Structure and key content: The event was supposed to be a residential seminar in Norway (TCA/NET) and after cancellation due to coronavirus was transformed into an online event of 3 subsequent days. The format was mainly a zoom meeting with expert inputs delivered in an actual TV studio, and following facilitated break-out groups. I was one of the 7 facilitators for break-out groups.

Your personal/professional reflection on challenges, successes and questions of doing this online: 

• importance of relevance of topic/offer for target group (human-/learner-centred design)
• an embedding fb group adds positively to group-building and informal sharing
• to deliver expert inputs not in front of laptop but as speech delivered in a studio (either pre-recorded or live) adds to the quality of the input. Furthermore inputs work better in authentic storytelling format and based on real cases/examples. Another advantage of the studio setup was the possibility to dynamically blend slides and speaker, thus overcoming the limited possibilities (small speaker video next to slides) offered by zoom
• it is important to  support speakers in delivering meaningful and engaging inputs/presentations (check slides beforehand, support to use tangible and engaging language, make a test run and give feedback on body language and delivery, encourage to use stories and cases, …), maybe even pre-record inputs
• relevance of informal elements and human factor (including failures, gossips and behind the scenes info)
• relevance of balance between authentic and localized elements and inputs (eg selection of speakers, cases, videos shown) and need for universal appeal to all participants
• relevance of geographic and gender balance (team, participants, …)
• zoom is not yet optimized for different types of spontaneous group divisions (eg parallel expert inputs and participants can choose spontaneously based on interest) and rotational group work methods (eg fishbowl, world café, …)
• again, relevance of clear script including all inputs, prepared questions, task division, team meetings and testruns
• the value of a good team with trust, humour, professionalism, sense of initiative, experience, flexibility, emotional intelligence and supportive approach
• relevance of balance between positive diversity in delivery brought in through different facilitators, and streamlined objectives & processes
• it can be useful to have a dedicated rapporteur/harvester (eg graphic recording and/or verbal sensemaking and/or reporting)
• importance of back-up plans and deputies/proxies, eg in case of technical problems
• while it is often underlined that it is important to take care of the background you show in online meetings, in this case the fact that people were invited into each others’ homes created a nice atmosphere of intimacy and sharing, it is also ok “not to leave for learning” but do it from home
• having the same group of participants over various days, several times divided into random break-out groups allowed for a nice feeling of intimacy and trust despite of the geographic distance between everybody
• energizers, mindfulness moments (solo and group), and informal connections are possible and enriching in online formats

Vitalie Cirhana 

Activity: Academy of Community Leaders in Moldova

Dates: 21-28 May 2020

Reference link: https://www.facebook.com/Contact.md/photos/a.214779675269426/2981692428578123/?type=3&theater 

Profile of participants: Community members and active persons who want to become leaders in their community and community facilitators.

Structure and key content: Initially planned and residential training, Academy for Community Leaders was redesigned for an online programme where participants from many rural areas of Moldova participated in the online sessions and learned how to become community facilitators and leaders in order to represent interests of disadvantaged groups in regards with local authorities.

Your personal/professional reflection on challenges, successes and questions of doing this online: For Republic of Moldova online education is a new and unexplored area. The biggest challenge is also connected with the people from rural areas who were not familiar with using the internet for educational purposes and created some additional challenges in the beginning of the training session. As conclusion we understand that for some target groups in necessary to plan also time on explaining how to use internet, browser, email, zoom and other online tools before starting the proper online activities.

Nik Paddison

Activity: Summer Camp 2020 Preparation Workshop

Date: 1 – 3 June 2020

Profile of Participants: 1 young person, 3 employed youth workers, 2 volunteer youth workers

Your personal/professional reflection on challenges, successes and questions of doing this online:

Since all my contracts from March had been cancelled or postponed till autumn / winter 2020 or even into 2021, this was a welcome opportunity.

This was a workshop / training course requested by a national based organisation in the capital Podgorica, Forum MNE. The request was made in April when we were still in full lockdown so would be done online. I arranged with the organisation that we would use Zoom, Conceptboard (an online white board), Padlet and Google Slides. This was my first experience facilitating online, so the prep work was huge, getting to know how to use Conceptboard, creating the various boards in advance, prepping Padlet, learning the different aspects of Zoom and making all the slides.

In the end lockdown was finished here by the end of May but since I had done all the work I proposed that we do one day online anyway and meet in person for the other 2 days. This would also provide them an opportunity to see, feel and use the different online tools since they will need to engage with them in the future. It was strange to sit in their office with 2 of the other participants in other rooms in the same office but we made it work.

My reflection:

The amount of work setting up for an online workshop / training experience is huge – at least for a first timer. I went over my session plan 4 or 5 times before I found all the gaps – gaps that I would naturally have fulfilled in an in-person environment – this meant readjusting slides, adding a slide where in the online context a step was missing, rehearsing it all step by step in my head and then through the links. I missed not being able to do a real time rehearsal with someone – I was working solo. As it turned out despite the fact that I had all the settings in Conceptboard for editorial rights for the group they could only ‘view’ when we met online. It took me 10 minutes to work out that I had to additionally give each one individually editorial rights – a full rehearsal with someone playing participant would have found that error in advance instead of in the middle of the workshop.

Participants Feedback:

One of the participants was a teacher so was familiar with Zoom and Padlet, however for the others it was the first time to be involved in such an experience. The feedback I received was mostly an excitement about the tools and what they could do rather than the content of my work but this was part of the aim. Having breakout rooms and collaboratively working on things like an online whiteboard or padlet were their highlights.

If you haven’t done so, read the 1st part, 2nd part and 3rd part in the series.

Found this helpful? Every month we host digital self-help group for trainers to share our reflections, challenges, success and questions. Join us!

Cover photo by Alina Grubnyak on Unsplash