First, I want to talk to you just about why I created this course. So the first and primary reason I created this course is because pretty much every time I facilitate online people are like, Wait, how did you do that? And people kept asking me, “Can you please show me how to do the things that you do when you run your online sessions? How do you have your screen set up? What is your setup look like? How did you make that thing appear in your zoom window like? What are you using to do all of this? Because you seem really present and available and not scattered.”

And the best way to teach technology is on an asynchronous platform, because that way you can do it at your own pace. You can follow along, and it might be one of the best things to learn not live with a group. So that's the first and primary reason that I created this course. The other reason is because I think that, as a professional facilitator, it's really important that we know and feel confident doing our work online.

A lot of people feel really confident in person, but when they're going into the online space, they just don't feel as comfortable and as confident there, and that affects the entire experience for our participants, so that's a big reason to get comfortable. To get confident first on the platform that you're using. So whatever piece of technology you're using, whether it's zoom meets teams or a different platform, getting really comfortable with that is the first and most important step.

I have a different course that is all about zoom and getting comfortable with all the little pieces of technology in zoom. And I would Super recommend that this course is kind of a layer on top of that, or in the background of that, that is a supplement and in an addition, and it can work no regardless of what platform you use, we want to make sure that we are reducing our own distractions when we are facilitating and so to me, having the ability to load everything that I'm going to put in the chat ahead of time to get oriented to like what my screen is going to look like, and not have to fuss around with screen shares, all of that helps me feel less distracted when I get into the moment and doing all of that choreography. It's a more easeful experience for me, and it's a more easeful experience for my participants, because they're also less distracted by me being like, Hold on, wait, I gotta find this that I don't do that, and so they don't have to experience that.

The last reason is something that a fellow facilitator said recently, which was that it just looks really professional, like when you feel comfortable and confident, when you're using tools like OBS to do this in your window, or this, or to, like, live edit a slide, which I'm going to show you later, how to do all of that stuff makes you look really professional. And for a lot of people, that also comes with a boost of confidence. So that's a really good reason to get good at this technology and to go ahead and invest in learning more of the things that can just help us in our professional world.

So we're going to start by looking at the behind the scenes of the desk setup, something that a lot of people always want to know. We're going to use a different camera to do that. So the next video is going to be shot from this little phone here. And let's, let's hop over there.