Audience Response Goes Remote
Online apps allow remote learners to interact with the class
Audience response technology has proven itself again and again in classrooms, training rooms and board rooms for years.
Remote Training Response Systems
But with the expansion of remote learning, many instructors have been challenged by an inability to assess and respond to their students’ learning in real time. Much of what hampered them was that audience response technology – which was traditionally hardwired or linked to an in-class network – was not available to them for the remote learner.
As a result, the feedback, metrics and ability to tailor the curriculum to suit the needs of the class were lost as a key part of the teaching and learning process.
But as more and more audience response systems have transitioned from location-specific hardware-based services to software applications that can be accessed anywhere, online learners and instructors can now benefit from the same style of interaction that they would find in a traditional classroom, conference room or seminar setting.
Audience Feedback in Remote Training
These tools – often available through the app marketplace of most large mobile phone companies – allow learners to participate in the process by responding to on-the-fly questions posed by instructors, ask questions and take quizzes to gauge their proficiency through their smartphone or other connected device.
On the instructor’s side, student questions can be shared with the class and answered for all of those in remote attendance. In addition, answers to questions and quiz results are instantly available to the instructor, giving them an instant read on which students are getting the material and which aren’t.
Instant feedback from the instructor, meanwhile, allows students to know what they did wrong or where mistakes were made, providing the opportunity for them to hone their studies to cover for deficiencies in knowledge. Unique to the online learning world, such apps also provide an opportunity for direct contact with the instructor, which is often hard to come by in large college or corporate training environments.
