Muddy Monday
March 16, 2020
So, they have closed schools, churches, sporting events and any large-scale venues. Heck they even closed the Nike store. I guess March Madness has taken on a new meaning. Ironically, everyone seems concerned about the lack of productivity, but have you ever been able to get anything done while everyone else in the office is watching basketball. So, I suppose the timing of the virus is not so bad as we were not getting anything done anyway.
However, closing the schools and asking you to work from home has added a new twist to March Madness. Many of our students are very experienced with online learning having taken many of our classes remotely. However, running a webinar or online meeting is very different than participating in one. I thought it might be helpful to offer some tips and tricks we have learned over the past 15 years of running an online school.
There are several types of online programs and I have found it helpful to lump these into three groups. The groupings are based upon several factors including live meetings, presentations, discussions, communication, assignments, and collaborative working. From this we get our three groupings that are:
- Distance Learning Workshops
- Virtual Learning Workshops
- Online Learning
Today we will talk about Distance Learning Workshops. These are meant to provide the same learning and collaborative interaction as an in-person class or meeting. These are generally offered at a specified time and date with real-time discussions with the instructor or team leader and the class. This requires live one-on-one interaction and is by far the most technologically challenging workshop that can be offered. An example of these are our monthly webinars.
The real-time discussion presents the most challenges. At issue is the device you may be using to call in. When a user calls in on a webinar service like Zoom or Go to Meeting there is often audio feedback from the microphone and speakers. This is especially true if the user is calling in using a laptop. The issue is very similar to when radio call in shows ask you to turn off your radio if you want to speak to the host. The microphone will pick up your voice and loop it back into the audio feed. The result is a mess and nobody can understand what anyone is saying. EPA just experienced this in their live webinar on the Navigable Waters Protection Rule a few weeks ago. It was pretty awful.
The solution is to separate the inbound voice to the outbound broadcast. This can easily be done by using a microphone headset. There are many USB types in the market and they all work pretty well. Even a $20 headset will sound OK for this type of use.
Alternatively, there are microphones that will only broadcast if you hold down the broadcast button. They are sort of like a CB radio microphone if anyone remembers what a CB radio is. When the button is released the microphone goes silent. You can still get a little feedback but it is greatly minimized.
Believe it or not a simple phone is also a great solution. Most webcast software products have a call in number. The speaker cannot hear the microphone so there is no feedback. Just call in with a user code and talk away.
The last option is chat. This is very effective when you have a large group like in our webinars. Real-time discussions can get pretty noisy especially if the kids are home. Chat offers the ability to have a discussion without distractions.
If you opt in for chat you will need to make sure you know the limitations of the chat platform you are using. Many only allow for a relatively small (like less than 10) number of simultaneous chats. Many of the webinar service plans require upgrades for larger groups.
There are also stand-alone chat platforms that can be added to a website fairly easily. These usually don’t require or at least give you the option not to have the users log in. This is great if you want to engage a client in a chat. These also charge by the user.
The last option for “sort of live” conversations is to use a discussion board for chat. The user would need to have an account and post to a discussion board. The conversation is asynchronous, but the time delay is mere seconds so it does feel live. A free version we have used is called Discourse. It is not bad, but it does require a login for all users but it is web-based so you do not need to host it. Many of the free ones require that you self host meaning you need to install the free software on a server.
We will jump into the other topics on Wednesday. If you would like to continue reading please subscribe to our newsletter. We publish every Wednesday. Click here to subscribe.
So, if you are stuck at home working, don’t forget to switch the laundry!
Have a great week!
Marc