live online training platform wish-list

gistfile1.txt

The number of cancelled conferences has really driven home to me that we have
crap for online training. The educational market surely has solutions to these
problems, but in the paid commercial training space, where are the platforms
designed for live interactive training that aren't just video chat with a very
thing skin on them?!

Here's my proposed wish-list of features. I've added a [ranking] where [1] is
must have, and [3] is nice to have.

- [2] Ability to drive students to specific web resources or local
presentations. At launch stick with easy ones that render in-browser but
probably need PPT eventually? Or see about leveraging office's free online
stuff though not sure you could automate that. This saves a ton on bandwidth
versus screen sharing and is higher quality plus could allow students to look
around the content separately if you want.
- [2] Automatic low bandwidth mode so that the training doesn't suck when
networks are a problem (which they will be)
- [1] Ability to monitor student screens on a dashboard during lab times (or
maybe always?)
- [1] Virtual raise hand features or status to know whether students are bored,
want to go faster, slower, have a question, etc. honestly this is hard in
person I feel like online might actually do this better with a forced popup
that students have to reply to do the instructor knows everyone is on board.
Besides a hand-raise, also want to let students ask questions privately
- [1] 1:1 mode for easy direct chat while optionally still hearing room chatter
as an instructor (for small groups -- for large groups you probably wouldn't
want group chatter but would have individual cohorts of students you might
assign in smaller groups to ask each other questions)
- [2] Break out rooms for smaller group exercises (some platforms do this now)
- [2] Built in quiz interface. Related to the status responses back three
items. Small frequent quizzes make sure everyone's on the same page. You can
address the wrong answers without shaming those that got them wrong.
- [2] "Follow me" mode where my text editor for coding is to the right side of
their screen and they have a code editor on the left that lets them run/test
their code. While always seeing my code and just hearing my voice. This is
probably too hard to set up generically given different environments but
something that the platform should enable.
- [1] All the usual group video controls like selective muting, feedback when
you're trying to speak and muted.
- [3] Whole bunch of potential around being able to record the class and re-use
previous sections, but potentially take over live at any time and mix
pre-recorded with live. Bonus: the pre-recorded can be pre-downloaded and then
unlocked as you get to that section further helping in situations with
low-bandwidth.