Feedback: “Glowbl is just like what we do in real life. It has helped us keep on track and maintain the same training approach. “

As the French Football Federation’s (FFF) training institute, the IFF coordinates training programmes for professionals from both national and regional football leagues. It chose Glowbl virtual classrooms for its remote training sessions. Thibaut Chesneau, project lead at the IFF, gives us his feedback.

Providing training sessions all over the world

The IFF is the French Football Federation’s training institute and, as such, manages all the training programmes for its instructors and managers. After their initial training course, participants must take an in-service training course every three years to validate their internationally-recognised instructor qualification. At the end of 2019, Thibaut Chesneau, project lead for the IFF, was looking for a solution to provide remote training for instructors based all over the world. “We were looking for a tool that could meet our need: to provide remote training that would be like our face-to-face sessions. ” Around this time, Thibaut met the Glowbl team at the Learning Technologies trade fair in Paris. “I had some great discussions with Glowbl and very soon we were able to carry out some tests. Then we started using Glowbl for training sessions with instructors based in Japan, the United States, Africa…”

At the same time, the French government announced the first Covid-19 lockdown. “Our training courses follow the same schedule as sports seasons, i.e. from 1 July to 30 June the following year. When the lockdown was announced, we had to finish our training sessions, both on a national and regional level. As our experience with Glowbl was a positive one as far as our overseas instructors were concerned, we took out a license for each of our regional leagues and for the national league. And so, we were thus able to certify 1,700 instructors by the end of June 2020. “

Running virtual classes without losing your footing

The project lead points out that being able to work with a French company was a real advantage, but the deciding factor for the IFF was, first and foremost, the Glowbl experience and user-friendliness. “We really liked the idea of being able to split participants into sub-groups. This function wasn’t available elsewhere or, if it was, it was rather complicated. With Glowbl, we have rooms with a central table, which we consider to be our lecture hall, with top-down participation. Then we send the students off to their sub-tables for work in separate groups. This function reflects what we do in real life. It has helped us keep on track and maintain the same training approach. “

Further reading: How can you give an effective virtual class?

A people-focused approach that boosts integration and engagement

As a Glowbl user for over a year, Thibaut has seen the platform improve. “We have seen Glowbl adapt gradually. We can do even more now than when we started. We particularly liked the whiteboard function when it was added, as well as the survey tool which enables us to interact with students more easily. We had to switch from face-to-face to remote learning to respond to a crisis situation and we could see how our students found it difficult to remain focused and engaged in their course. The new functions make the sessions livelier and grab their attention in a fun way. “

“We use Glowbl in several different ways and the tool meets a large number of our needs. That’s why we recommend it to our partners. Also, our discussions with the sales team were very positive and the team remained responsive, in spite of the circumstances of the first lockdown and the many demands on their time. This people-centred aspect was important to us, in our implementation and use of Glowbl. “