Have you ever wished you could reduce the number of hours (or days) it takes to come up with engaging ideas for your training sessions?This morning my company, Endurance Learning, launched an online tool that can help you generate a facilitator guide, a complete set of activities and a PowerPoint deck – all in under five minutes. The tool is called Soapbox. Here is how it works:
Enter some fundamental information about your session
There are several factors that will determine the types of activities that Soapbox will generate for you. The number of participants, the amount of time you have and the room set-up will all impact the types of activities you can do with your participants.
Decide what your participants should be able to do by the end of your session
In other words, create a set of learning outcomes. Soapbox currently offers more than 25 learning outcomes to help get you started. These outcome starters will help determine the most appropriate activities to apply to your presentation, drawing from our library of more than 100 learning activities.
Press “Generate Your Presentation”
That’s it. Now you have:
- a facilitator guide with detailed instructions on how to facilitate each activity,
- a complete list of materials you’ll need – from pens to flipcharts to certain handout templates, and
- PowerPoint slides with instructions to help facilitators and participants follow along with each activity
Of course, since Soapbox doesn’t know your specific content, you will probably want to customize your facilitator guide to some degree. Most beta participants estimated that Soapbox could get their presentations somewhere between 50% – 85% of the way there.
Several beta participants suggested that Soapbox can do in 5 minutes what would have taken them two full days’ worth of work hours to complete.
Customize your plan
Once you have a sequence and flow of activities to guide your participants through your session, you’ll need to decide if you have the right activities.
If an activity doesn’t seem like it would work in your context, you can choose an alternative.
Sometimes people feel there may be too many activities, so they’ll want to delete a Soapbox recommendation and allow for more time in other areas of their presentation.
Some users will want to simply add their own talking points into the instructions. The instructions generated by Soapbox are fully editable.
You can even add breaks into your plan.
Download your slides
Once you’re happy with the sequence and flow of your presentation and you’ve edited your content in Soapbox, you can download a set of slides. If you need to insert or edit any of the slides, your deck is truly yours to do with as you wish.
Download handout templates
Some activities call for handouts or forms. Soapbox offers templates for many of these handouts that you can print and reproduce.
Download the facilitator guide
Finally, for those who wish to have a hard copy with them as they present, you can download a facilitator guide with all of the instructions needed to facilitate each activity.
Sign up for free today!
As we launch this new tool, we are offering a 14-day free trial period for you to begin generating your next presentations within minutes.
