How to Use Classroom for a Virtual Event

This article describes ways to set up the components of a virtual event in Classroom. Events can be structured in more than one way, so use these options as a starting point.

Structuring your content

To decide where and how to create and set up your event, translate the parts of a Classroom site into event terms. First, understand the hierarchy of items in Classroom and how each part fits into the others. For a full description, see Classroom - Course Setup Hierarchy.

Packages

Permissions can be set only at the package level. To restrict content, restrict it at the package level, not at any of the other levels. This also applies if you charge for content.

Make sure that what you charge for separately is its own package. For example, if attendees pay separately for each speaker, put each speaker’s session in a different package.

Packages are the highest level of the setup structure and can house all courses. Building course materials in the Learning Center is the staging area. Creating a package is the publishing hub, where the course becomes visible and ready for use on the learner-facing site, your Classroom.

A course doesn’t show on your learner-facing site unless it is published through a package. This example shows where a package appears on the site.

Courses

A course puts all the pieces together so that attendees can access the content within a package. A course can be broken into chapters, lessons, and assessments. Learners can’t see these items until the course is made into a package.

In this example, the package “Morning Sessions” contains multiple courses. We set up a unique course for each session. Selecting the package shows all of its courses in a list.

Chapters, sessions, lessons, and assessments

A chapter is the top item in a course. All sessions fall under a chapter, whether the sessions are lessons, assessments, or both. Name chapters whatever makes sense for your course, and rename them at any time. A course can have unlimited chapters.

A session is a part of a chapter that contains lessons and assessments. A chapter can have unlimited sessions. Many customers have 1 or 2 lessons that learners consume before they take an assessment to prove their proficiency.

A lesson presents one or more files to learners to encourage mastery of a subject. An assessment is an exam or quiz that learners take to prove their mastery of the content.

Putting it all together

Start by creating a course. A course houses your content, lessons, and assessments, and a package can’t be created until a course is ready. Within the course, create chapters to house your lessons and assessments. When you’re ready to make the offering visible on your site, turn the course into a package.

Setting up a virtual vendor hall

A virtual vendor hall can be set up in several ways. This section describes how we set up ours for MC Thrive.

1. Set up each vendor as a course in Classroom. In the Long Description area of the course, add details such as the vendor’s logo, a summary of their company, contact information, and promotional videos.

   

2. Add an assessment for each vendor. In this case, the assessment was a survey that captured engagement and interest for our vendors. It also let attendees earn raffle tickets based on their submissions. To add the assessment, select the name of the vendor course, select Add Assessment, name the assessment, add any configurations, and add questions. For more information, see Classroom - Creating Assessments.

   

3. Create a package to house all of the vendor courses. We called our package “Virtual Marketplace.”

   

Setting up speaker sessions

Embed speaker sessions using Crowdcast, TelSpan, or the webinar provider of your choice.

When you set up your speaker sessions, consider whether you need different permissions for different sessions. Permissions can be set only at the package level, so put sessions that need different permissions in different packages.

For MC Thrive, access to the event was all-inclusive, so we didn’t need a unique package for each speaker or session. Because it was an all-day event, we broke it up by using one package for our morning sessions and one for our afternoon sessions.

1. Set up each speaker session as a course. In the Long Description area of the course, include a speaker bio and a description of what the speaker discusses.

   

2. Select the name of the course and create a lesson to house the webinar.
3. In the lesson editor, select Insert in the toolbar, then select Media.
4. On the Embed tab, paste the embed code from your webinar provider for that session.

   

Linking to an external webinar provider without an embed code

If your webinar or live streaming provider doesn’t provide an embed code, create a link to the external session instead. Set up a course for the session, and set up a lesson within that course to house the session, as described in the previous section. Instead of embedding the webinar in the page, include a link that takes the user to the external session. This example from another of our event Classroom sites links to a Zoom meeting.

1. In the lesson’s text editor, include all of the details of the session.
2. Create a link using the link feature in the editor.

   

In the example, instead of linking text, we added the link to a button-style image. This gives the appearance of a button.