The Rookie Guide to Hosting Videos and Webinars on LearnDash

Never hosted a webinar on LearnDash before?

The first one can be fun but also extremely scary at the same time. There are too many issues to consider. It’s hard to figure out where to start. And you don’t even know if this’ll work out…

But you can’t hit what you don’t aim for, right?

The only way to ace this is by pushing all of your concerns away and preparing for the task at hand.

Are you ready?

Choosing the Right Video Conferencing Software  

Just about every webinar platform on the market comes with a free trial these days. 

In my opinion, testing out the free version of your shortlisted tools with a small audience is a great way to determine what works for you. 

But how do you shortlist these tools?

In addition to the budget, there are a couple of features that you should look out for in your LearnDash video hosting tool.

Popular Tools For You to Pick From

• Zoom
• Google Meet
• GoToWebinar
• Adobe Connect

Why Integrating the Video Hosting Tool With Your LearnDash LMS is a Good Idea

Picture this.

Your students are already enrolled in certain courses on your LMS. So you create a group for these users and send them an invite (and perhaps even a reminder) to attend your webinar. After you’ve successfully conducted the session, you cross-reference the attendance that’s recorded on your webinar tool, with the list of enrolled students on your LearnDash LMS manually.

Why go through all of this when you can let your LMS handle it for you?

Integrating your video conferencing software with your LearnDash LMS will help you bypass the tedious administrative work. The scheduling, notifications, attendance – all of it can be managed from a single unified system, and there’s no scope for human error anymore.

Preparing For Your First Video Lecture or LearnDash Webinar

The most important part of hosting a webinar is what you do beforehand to prepare. 

Winging it is never a great idea when it comes to conducting a live session. Here’s a mini checklist of everything you need to do before the day of your lecture:

1. Get to know your tool. Play around and familiarize yourself with any and all useful functionality it offers (e.g., interactive features like polls that can help you improve engagement).
2. Have your presentation slides ready well in advance. Keep in mind that roughly 25% of attendees tune into webinars via their mobile devices. Increase the size of the text and visuals in your slides and annotations. This will ensure a comfortable level of viewability despite the smaller displays in mobile devices.
3. Take into account the time you’ll need for conducting a Q&A session. Although attendees are likely to ask plenty of questions, it’s always a smart idea to have a list of prepared questions ready, just in case your audience isn’t as engaged as you expected them to be.
4. Notify your learners of anything they need to read or prepare for your webinar. Once you know what topic you want to cover, make sure to break it down into more specific topics to give your audience a basic understanding of what your session is about.
5. Finally, send out your invites and schedule reminder emails. The free LearnDash Notifications add-on might come in very handy if you’re looking to automate this. 

Before going live, you can record a test clip and ask for someone’s opinion regarding your sound, video quality, or any other elements that your audience might notice.

Effectively Repurposing Your LearnDash Webinar Content 

Now, there’s a little more work you need to put in before considering the job to be done. After conducting your video lecture or webinar on LearnDah, you’ve got to ensure your content is put to good use.

Moving your classroom online can be a time consuming and challenging exercise. Especially when you’re strapped for time and struggle to put out new content week on week.

Done right, your webinar can serve as a very effective engagement tool. In addition to keeping in touch with your attendees, you can also ensure that the students who couldn’t make it to your session don’t miss out.

I’ll chalk out a few ideas for you. You can:

• Email the participants with a full recap blog post.
• Share your presentation on SlideShare.
• Embed the video recording on your LearnDash LMS.
• Edit your webinar into bite-size chunks and share those snippets on your blog, and social media.
• Take a brief survey so your attendees can provide feedback that will help you improve.

Repurposing content isn’t about being lazy or just reusing the same old information. It’s about creating strong, standalone pieces of content that your audience will find useful.

Expert Tips You Don’t Want To Miss Out On While Conducting Your LearnDash Webinar

Even under the best circumstances, you never know what could go wrong in a live setting. 

Before we part, here’s a couple of things you could do to avoid any mishaps on the day of your session:

• Practice with a friend, colleague, child, spouse – anyone that you can manage to persuade. This becomes all the more important if you’re co-hosting the session.
• Test your own sound and camera before the session. Mute every other device that isn’t necessary for the webinar.
• Close applications running in the background of your computer.
• Test out your slides to make sure you test slides on a smartphone before shooting your lectures so all text is readable on small screens.
• Ask learners to use their own name when they enter. Nicknames are not useful when you’re trying to record who was present.
• Be prepared for something to go wrong. Make a Facebook group, Skype group, email group or figure out another way to send a quick message to all your attendees.
• If something goes wrong, relax, stay calm, smile and ask the students if they have any ideas. There’s always a chance one of them will know what to do. 

Most importantly, enjoy it. 🙂

• eLearning, LearnDash, Learning Management Systems
• With tags: learndash, video conferencing, webinar

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• Shreya R

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