GENERAL TIPS  for  Creating  BetteR  EXPERIENCES  IN  ONLINE  MEETINGS  

GENERAL TIPS FOR TEACHERS:
  • Remember that many of our students and friends out there (and fellow teachers!) are depressed, or bored, or discouraged, or lost, whether or not they show it.  This change in circumstances is difficult for many people, and certainly we're all scrambling to learn these new technologies!   So find some way to bring life and fun into your students' lives, and also check in with them regularly about how're they're feeling about things.
  • Wear pants!   You never know when you might have to stand up quickly to catch that spilling cup of coffee! 
  • Invent some hand signals for your students, that you can use for them when in Grid View, so they don't have to keep turning their mics on and off.  "OK"  "Thumbs up" "Thumbs Down" "Thank you" (fingers touch chin, then out),  "HEY YES I'M HERE, HELLO!" (two jazz hands waving), "I agree with the speaker" (like a knock-knock gesture) and so on.  ​ ​
  • ​
  • Be patient with this new technology!   Things will ALWAYS go wrong; accept that problems will happen.  DO plan on those extra moments to resolve these things, and score yourself a point for anything you learned in the process.  Score a point for a student who had a tech problem too, and who taught you something about what to do, as well!
WHATEVER you do, please don't be like this group: 
On this site:
On this page (these links don't work yet:
​just scroll down!
WIFI
  • If you're the one "breaking up" for others with bad sound or video - the culprit is very likely your wifi or your processor speed, even though you can hear your own voice clearly and continuously :-)   If a presentation is messing up for you but not for everyone else, again, the issue is with your wifi or processor, not your sound settings.  
  • Be aware that if you are using a CHROME HOTSPOT borrowed from your school, it will not be very strong: request that nobody else use that wifi during your meeting, and that all phones that use wifi have their wifi settings set to "off."  Devices will use up wifi strength even when not in use.
  • DO TURN OFF the Wifi on your phones, and try to negotiate with others in your house regarding meeting times and wifi usage - unless you are using your phone as a hotspot.    
  • Be aware that VIDEO uses up more bandwidth, as does MUSIC, so make sure any tabs with these going should be exited.  Tabs with static web pages, once loaded, do not use up more bandwidth.
  • In your neighborhood, there may be "HOT TIMES" where there is heavier usage and thus slower speeds: 9am-10am is generally the most heavily used time block!
  • Make sure the router in your house is at TABLE LEVEL, rather than on the floor (yes, we know it's ugly!).  ​
Your router looks something like this.  Make sure it's not on the floor;
​make sure it's not near a WiFi-sucking device like your TV!
  • Are you far from your router, or working outside where the signal has to go through thick walls or many kinds of power?   Be sure you've got enough strength in your router!
  • TURNING YOUR ROUTER OFF AND ON briefly in the morning (or whenever) will significantly improve its bandwidth reception, oddly enough.  
  • Keep other major wifi appliances (like your TV) away from the router.  
  • Microwaves will reduce your bandwidth significantly.  Who's that in the kitchen right now? 
  • Can you plug your PC (can't do it with Macs) directly in to the router via Ethernet cable?   Seems like your best bet.
If you can, hook your laptop or desktop up to the Ethernet via your router.  If you're on a Mac, you'll need one of these adaptors.  Choose the Ethernet to Firewire over the Ethernet to USB for faster results, if you have the option.
An ethernet looks basically like an old-fashioned telephone hookup, except that it is a little thicker.
VISUAL
  • If you can, use an added-on WEBCAM, such as Logitech's C920.  The video and audio quality will be significantly improved.  However, currently they are on Amazon for 4x their cost from the manufacturer, and I do not recommend buying one this way.  Don't spend over $100, and certainly not $360!  Perhaps a local OfficeMax or BestBuy will get a shipment soon?  They are all out of stock both online and in-store (at least are in Tucson).  But I'm promised that shipments are coming in regularly and who knows, maybe tomorrow?    ​
  • Zoom has an "Touch up my appearance" feature which basically blurs the image, so your zits and wrinkles aren't so obvious.  Not sure if I like the less-than-clear view?  
  • Zoom has a "Mirror my video" option, which is useful for having them copy your actions.  Google Meet does not.
  • Zoom has some awesome virtual backgrounds, including short movement clips (e.g. swaying palm trees), that work just fine if you don't move around too much.  If you do move around a lot, then having a green screen works much better.  
  • LIGHT
  • Have your face well-lit; make sure your source of light is coming from the front of you rather than the back; otherwise the camera will make your face darker. 
  • If possible, have natural light from windows on your face.  
  • Several sources of light from different angles are great.  Careful of problems like mine, conferencing from our dinner table at home: the chandelier was directly overhead, and I was shadowed even though I had many other light sources! 
  • RING LIGHTS are the rage now with vloggers and vodcasters, as they provide a nice even source; I haven't tried them yet.   Available at Best Buy, and on Amazon. ​    
AUDIO
  • Keep in mind that audio is the number one most important element, more than the visual.  You must be heard with a nice clear voice!
  • Use earbuds or headphones so that 1) you will hear everyone much more clearly than you would have through your computer speakers, and 2) others in your household will not have to listen to your conference.  It's a requirement for my students who are required to listen to lots of music.  It's also helpful for me to discern new students' voices, when I can't see them speaking.  
  • Make sure you are speaking clearly, enunciating, and into your device.
  • Use a webcam if you have one, preferably one that has two or four little mics on it (see notes above regarding webcams).
  • DO NOT GET A MICROPHONE FOR GOOGLE MEET.   GOOGLE MEET DOES NOT SUPPORT SOUND INPUT FROM OTHER SOURCES, INCLUDING EMBEDDED VIDEOS OR INTERNAL MUSIC.  For MEET, on a Mac, sound is much better when using a Chrome browser rather than Safari.  But sound seems to fairly equally bad on both PCs and Macs in Meet for anything other than speaking voices.  ​​

Working  in  Google  Hangouts  Meet

CREATING APPOINTMENTS
Google has at least three different ways to create appointments for Google Hangout classes.
  • You can create one via Google Calendar (the "+" sign, make an event, add in Hangouts, and invite; this will stay on the calendar where people can refer, or they can check it on their email; you can also re-send them the link).​
  • You can create an event directly in Meet: https://meet.google.com/.  Or you can work from this page; I recommend bookmarking it if you have a lot of meetings so you're not constantly having to go to the calendar to look up addresses.  Any scheduled Hangout appointments (for the day only, and only those that haven't happened yet) will show up on this page.  Instead of a URL address, you can create a quick title for the meeting, and a special password.  This method is faster if you need to make one in a hurry.  
  • You can now integrate with Google Classroom (NEW!) and can, for instance, have an ongoing address where students go, that you leave in Google Classroom for them to find.  You might, for instance, have one ongoing meeting address where students check in and out, rather than scheduling an individual event for each and every student - unless it's very important that the conversation be absolutely private.  
ADD-ONS
Some of these are new!  Some of these you would find more easily by going into the Chrome Web Store: 
 (it's also a great place to find add-ons for your other Chrome apps like your slide Presentations, Docs, or Sheets.  If it says "not enabled by Administration" I would encourage you to ask about this, as I found a music notation add-on, that our home office was happy to enable for us!  When you add these extensions, their icon will show up in your menu bar on the upper right.

BE AWARE THAT GOOGLE HANGOUTS/MEET DOES NOT SUPPORT INTERNAL SOUND SHARING.  THAT MEANS YOU CAN'T PLAY ANY SOUNDS FOR PEOPLE TO HEAR ON YOUR COMPUTER.  NOT A NOTE.  NOT EVEN FROM A VIDEO.  BUT IT'S A GREAT APP FOR ORDINARY MEETINGS, AND WE USE THIS VERY SUCCESSFULLY WITH ALL OF OUR STUDENTS AND STAFF AT OUR SCHOOL. 
  • GRID VIEW - if you haven't added on Grid yet, do it now!   It will allow you to see everyone at once as an option, really important when you're addressing a class!  But you can also switch back to seeing one person at a time, with a few people over on the right side of the screen.  I think that the students should all have this extension, so they can see each other.  It's been great to have for our teacher meetings.  
  • GOOGLE MEET ENHANCEMENT SUITE - Do this!   It actually includes Grid Layout so you wouldn't need to also add it on separately.  This offers the ability to auto-join meetings immediately without having to go through the opening screen - what a timesaver!   It allows you to mute-unmute with a single keyboard touch, which is better than the Ctrl-D or looking around for the mic button.  
  • MEET ATTENDANCE - New!  This creates a spreadsheet with timestamps that you can take at any time during your meeting - say at the beginning and at the end.  This might help with larger meetings where students swear they were there, but you didn't see them.  Better yet, set some rules in your class about entering and exiting checkin procedures.  
  • NOD - This gives you emojis like "thumbs up" for use when you are muted in a meeting.  Great for those students who are shy.  It has a “confused” emoji, and one for raising your hand quickly.  It will stay on the presenter’s screen until you have acknowledged them/you click out of it.  
  • VISUAL EFFECTS FOR GOOGLE MEET - This includes blur, pixellate, and green screen background.  The blur or pixilate effect might be useful for those (students?) with shyness issues (?) or maybe you, if you have a big zit that day or your hair is a mess from sleeping in.  I cannot get the green screen option to work for me on my MacBook - maybe some of you can make it work on your Chromebooks or PCs (I hear there are such things though I would never touch them.  :-).  After a week of playing with it, I’ve removed this, as my Meet sessions were starting to jitter (mine or my students’), which stopped after I removed it. 

WORKING  IN  ZOOM

BASICS
  • Yes, Zoom works great on Chromebook (except for a greater time lag), but it will ask students to download an app, which they cannot do because there's no hard drive.  Make sure they go to zoom.us, NOT to the web URL that Zoom usually provides.  Then, on the sign-in screen, click the very faint lettering towards the bottom which says "work from desktop version." 
SOUND 
  • Keep in mind that sound in Zoom is optimized for the speaking voice - so music/singing voice will not sound as good unless you fix the audio settings!  
  • There are more SOUND SETTINGS in the laptop version than the phone or iPad version, so change your sound settings on your laptop; those will apply then to your other devices.  ​
  • If using music in any way, always choose "Turn on Original Sound," in the upper left corner of the viewing window, once you're in a meeting, which will stop Zoom from cancelling high and low musical sounds.  
  • For Zoom, in experiments at our house, a Mac PowerBook produces fairly minimal (half-second) time-delay between video and sound (a fraction of a second off); but on a smaller older PC, even on ethernet cable, the video seems to lag about 1.17 seconds (even on your own screen!). However, on a new PC with a better processor, there is only a barely noticeable display, and when connected to ethernet via cable, the delay completely disappears. 
    • ​We think that an Intel Core processor of i7 is what beat the smaller PC - plus a good graphics card; our better PC's i9 processor seems to be making the difference in speeds.  An i5 had greater lag time.  Check in your Apple settings:
  • Keep in mind that while you may be able to exert a certain amount of control at your end, many people at the other end will likely have a delay when watching themselves on their own screen.
  • For those looking for a fun teaching plan using dance or movement, try playing a rhythmic mirroring game - even with yourself, it's kind of fun, watching yourself hit your moves two beats later: in our house while trying to match, we would end up clapping between each other's beats, and it was kind of awesome.  It will end up teaching your kids not just about observing, but learning about delay in processor speeds!  

PRESENTATIONS
  • Switching screens is a lot easier in Zoom, as you are given the title for each window, or devices available, and even a whiteboard to draw or write on as an option.  With Google Meet, there's a lot of scrambling for tabs and making sure you've torn off a new window so you can select just that instead of your whole screen.  Either way, slide presentations like PowerPoint or Google Slides work GREAT on these platforms, and note that students can follow along on the same presentations, and even add to them directly, if you give them permissions. 

DANCE/MUSIC TEACHERS: 
  • USE A SEPARATE DEVICE TO PLAY MUSIC from your speaking; yes you can play music directly into Zoom, but whenever you start speaking (or anyone starts speaking) the sound will instantly degenerate; it's best to keep people, including yourself on "Mute" when music is playing.  
    • ​(We're still experimenting here at the ranch with having dual inputs (mic & music) in Zoom, and will return when we've found the perfect balance.  We will let you know when we've found aural perfection!)​
  • In Audio Settings in Zoom (next to the Mute button), uncheck "Automatically adjust volume."  
    • Mic: Volume settings push to high: all the way up (to the right).  
    • Speaker (student response back to you): you can adjust to hear them better.
    • Click on "Advanced" in the lower right corner of the Audio Settings window.
      • ​Click "Show in-meeting option to "Enable Original Sound" from microphone.  This will change the settings from the default "speaking voice equalizing."  This means it will not compress your sound coming from your Mic.  
        • "​Suppress Persistent Background Noise:" Disable.
        • "Suppress Intermittent Background Noise:" Disable.
        • "Echo Cancellation:" Leave it at "Auto." 
  • If you can't get a webcam, invest in a good external mic (NOT FOR GOOGLE MEET); laptops generally don't have good mics.  An additional webcam - especially those with two mics (Logitech's) are great - but don't buy these days unless at regular prices (under $100 - see above).  Blue yetis are great!      www.amazon.com/Blue-Yeti-USB-Microphone-Silver/dp/B002VA464Ss.  These should not be more than $130; be careful of price gouging these days.   Dance teachers who are dancing, may instead want to invest in a wireless mic headset.  These are fairly cheap: we like THIS ONE from Amazon for $35.99 because it's just an easy plug in to a speaker, with the right wire connections (more on that on an upcoming webpage on this site! 
  • If students are dancing full out, how nice if they have external speakers!  

PLP (Personalized Learning Program):
​For (mostly) Leona Group teachers only

  • If a student can't get in to PLP, but can't see their courses: make sure they've acknowledged any messages in there first. ​
  • ​You CAN change the text itself in the lessons, but you have to do it by changing the HTML itself; you can't simply edit the text as is. If you DO edit the HTML, you won't get future updates from the main system, BUT it is still possible to add them in again in another year.  
  • Have you noticed that each unit has a different percentage of the total grade?  It's dependent upon the amount of work in that lesson.  Also, the percentages change depending upon whether you add or subtract a week, and the various due dates realign themselves to match the amount of time left till the end of the block.