As learning professionals, we already know that COVID-19 has had a profound effect on the viability of physical classrooms and face-to-face courses. A Google Trends search for “virtual classroom” shows a huge rise in interest since the pandemic made headlines in early 2020.

Even before COVID-19, companies were relying increasingly on webinars to conduct training because the technology had improved so much and because live online training is much more time- and cost-efficient.  The pandemic has only accelerated that trend.