Online Facilitator Fitness

I’m training for the Knoxville Marathon which means working out has become part of my weekly routine.  It sounds strange, but as I’ve been training for the marathon, I’ve noticed some similarities with preparing for online facilitation and it got me thinking about a regimen for online facilitator fitness.

 Be 100% prepared for the day of the event

A runner, like other athletes, repeats his/her training over and over so that s/he is 100% prepared on the day of the event.  Due to so much preparation, prior to the day of the event  s/he has experienced a range of what could go wrong (shoelace breaks, thunderstorms, etc.).  If you’ve spent the time to learn the features of your virtual classroom tool, practiced with a few different mock audience audiences, you’ve no doubt had to troubleshoot different situations in the virtual classroom:  audio didn’t work, you forgot to prepare a poll, switching between application sharing and your PowerPoint slides was clunky.  A large amount of practicing is the best way to ensure you will be a peak performer on the day of the event.