Webinars provide an opportunity for experts to share their thoughts and experiences with a wide audience. They can also do this through face-to-face conferences, but are limited in their reach by geography. The cost of flying an expert over and then putting them up while they recover from the jet lag and do a little sightseeing is often prohibitive. The result is lots of second division experts, who live more locally, filling in to deliver similar expertise.
Online, of course, the situation is quite different. The limitations on using the first divison expert are much reduced. You’re paying for a couple of hours at most, rather than a week away and all those expenses. Even if the top expert has an extortionate hourly rate (and if you’re one of them then why not?) then they are likely to be affordable.
So, what was once a very localised business can become centralised and a star system can operate, as in films, TV, books and sports. The division one players get most of the business and attract celebrity status. Those in division two pick up the scraps.
The same can apply to live online learning events as it does to webinars, but here there is a moderating factor. Whereas you can run a webinar for practically any size audience, a learning event is likely to run for 16 people or less. And division one teachers and trainers only have so many hours in the day, leaving plenty of scope for others. So, where the star system will operate most noticeably is with presentations, whether live or recorded. The world is becoming a much smaller place, and that makes it easier for the powerful to become more so.
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Cream rises to the top, and if A List presenters can spread themselves more thinly and make a good buck then so be it. I’ll be interested to hear reactions to Clive’s assertion that somewhere out there is a body of people recognised as division one teachers and trainers. It’s true that we all recognise one when we see one. The Teacher Training Agency in the UK ran a campaign not so long ago which asked people to recall those charismatic teachers who had had most effect on them in their formative years. Like great leaders, great teachers and trainers inspire. But classifying and codifying the behaviour of a great educator or instructor is more easily said than done. It’s a bit like trying to profile the personality and model the behaviour of one who is brilliant at selling. If it could be done easily then Direct Sales Operations would not have to recruit as much as 80% of salesforce year on year due to churn and attrition. Sadly weak trainers (and teachers) are not always helped to move on to a profession that is better suited to their talents; they are left unsupported to continue to bemuse, demotivate and alienate their audiences.
Which brings me to the point of the personality and skills of the online trainer and teacher. If they are just the same as the skills of the A List presenter/broadcaster then we have reduced the act of mediating learning to the level of entertainment and information gathering. Of course this is not what Clive is suggesting and I believe he’s working hard to develop a new and reliable set of competencies for those involved in eLearning in its many forms. High on my list would be those subtleties that make great teachers and trainers, whatever the medium, get the best out of learners and so achieve reaults.
Take people like Ben Zander for example, or a generation before him, Dorothy Heathcote. These are people who truly respect and care for their students, who understand the psychology of motivation and how to take people on the journey from “I can’t” (or won’t) to “I can” (or will). Lang Lang is a virtuoso pianist, and not primarily a teacher and yet it is often his personal influence and enthusiasm and role-modelling that is given credit for the fact that 50 million children are studying music in China, 36 million of them the piano. Most of them have never seen or heard Lang Lang speaking or playing live!
Cream rises to the top, and if A List presenters can spread themselves more thinly and make a good buck then so be it. I’ll be interested to hear reactions to Clive’s assertion that somewhere out there is a body of people recognised as division one teachers and trainers. It’s true that we all recognise one when we see one. The Teacher Training Agency in the UK ran a campaign not so long ago which asked people to recall those charismatic teachers who had had most effect on them in their formative years. Like great leaders, great teachers and trainers inspire. But classifying and codifying the behaviour of a great educator or instructor is more easily said than done. It’s a bit like trying to profile the personality and model the behaviour of one who is brilliant at selling. If it could be done easily then Direct Sales Operations would not have to recruit as much as 80% of salesforce year on year due to churn and attrition. Sadly weak trainers (and teachers) are not always helped to move on to a profession that is better suited to their talents; they are left unsupported to continue to bemuse, demotivate and alienate their audiences.
Which brings me to the point of the personality and skills of the online trainer and teacher. If they are just the same as the skills of the A List presenter/broadcaster then we have reduced the act of mediating learning to the level of entertainment and information gathering. Of course this is not what Clive is suggesting and I believe he’s working hard to develop a new and reliable set of competencies for those involved in eLearning in its many forms. High on my list would be those subtleties that make great teachers and trainers, whatever the medium, get the best out of learners and so achieve reaults.
Take people like Ben Zander for example, or a generation before him, Dorothy Heathcote. These are people who truly respect and care for their students, who understand the psychology of motivation and how to take people on the journey from “I can’t” (or won’t) to “I can” (or will). Lang Lang is a virtuoso pianist, and not primarily a teacher and yet it is often his personal influence and enthusiasm and role-modelling that is given credit for the fact that 50 million children are studying music in China, 36 million of them the piano. Most of them have never seen or heard Lang Lang speaking or playing live!