Essential Online Event Agenda
Online events allow us to learn and meet from wherever we are. Quickly put together an agenda for your next virtual event based on these essential building blocks. Use breakout rooms and interactions in the chat and with polls to make presentations and lessons instantly more participatory and engaging for your attendees.
Simply click on Export, then Duplicate this model to tailor it to your needs and create the ideal session for your online event. For longer events, with multiple speakers, all you need to do is add a break and copy-paste the relevant parts of the structure.
Objectives
- Start your design flow with a ready-made series of drag-and-drop blocks designed for online events.
- Set up a successful presentation in a virtual environment:
- Combine online learning, networking and discussion.
Instructions
In this essential template for an online event you’ll find all you need to kick-start your design. This customizable outline includes:
- time for everyone to join and feel welcomed;
- slots for presentations and Q&A;
- ideas on when to use breakout rooms effectively to encourage networking and learning.
Short informative sessions in online environments have become the post-pandemic norm of how we share content and information. People join webinars and online events from everywhere in the world. Communities form around a topic or practice rather than being constrained by logistics and geography.
This outline for a basic online session includes some of the best practices developed to support sharing information in virtual spaces.
Leading participatory activities before and after content delivery can boost engagement and learning; giving attendees opportunities to meet and network will ensure your session remains lively and provides real value to participants.
If your event runs longer and you have more than one speaker, simply adjust timings or copy-paste sections. Repeating the same series of activities for debriefing and drawing out questions and reflections after each bit of content delivery is generally appreciated by participants.
Repeating the same pattern makes the structure familiar and allows attendees to focus on their learnings rather than on learning a process. Just remember to add breaks!
Who can facilitate it?
When working online it’s good practice to be (at least) two people: one delivering content and one taking care of tech aspects such as creating breakout rooms and monitoring the chat. This role is called “producer” or “tech host”.
If you have speakers invited to your event, you can take on the role of both hosting and keeping an eye on the tech. If you are presenting content yourself, or if the group is larger than 12 people, you will breathe easier in a team of two. In any case, sometimes technology and connections suddenly fail us, so it’s better to have a backup.
For more tips on facilitating online check out our guide to being great virtual facilitators!
Author
James Smart is Head of Content at SessionLab. He’s facilitated workshops and designed elearning experiences for places including the University of East Anglia and the National Centre for Writing. At SessionLab, we are passionate about facilitation. We believe good workshop design leads to better collaboration, enabling people to achieve great things. SessionLab is the go-to platform for session design, with an agenda planning tool, library of facilitation resources and vibrant community for facilitators. It enables facilitators to streamline workshop design through drag-and-drop scheduling, automatic timing and seamless sharing with clients and colleagues.
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