By now it is very likely that you will have discovered all of the advantages and pitfalls of moving your teaching online. Some teachers may have been exploring the options long before this year and some will not yet have taken the dive.
As part of our SURVIVAL guide, here is everything you need to know to get you started and teaching effectively.
THE PLATFORMS AVAILABLE
Microsoft Teams is part of the MS Office 365 suite of apps and it is likely that you will have free access as an educational institution. Microsoft has also lifted meeting user limits to help those affected by the COVID-19 pandemic.
Skype is a calling app you will already know and video calls can be attended by up to 50 people.
Hangouts Meet was recently rebranded and is now known as Google Meet. It’s
free for individual users and the enterprise version is now free for anyone with a Google account.
It can handle meetings with up to 250 participants per call, live streaming for up to 100,000 viewers and can record meetings on Google Drive for later access. Google recently announced that it is enabling free access to various video conferencing tools for schools until September 30, 2020, so worth investigating.
Finally, Zoom, formerly known only in the business world, is now conquering the entire world with a sudden peak in users. Whilst it has received some dubious publicity, it has a myriad of features and is designed with non-tech people in mind. The interface is simple and it’s easy to get going straight away.
WHICH DO YOU CHOOSE?
Firstly, get some advice
It is likely that your school has already decided which platform they recommend. For example, for my teaching at Leeds College of Music, we already had access to the Microsoft 365 suite, so very quickly the College decided to use Teams exclusively.
Do some testing
But you may be teaching in different ways and need different features. It is worth considering different platforms for different styles of teaching. One may suit group work and one may suit your one to one teaching. You may also sometimes be using a laptop and at other times a mobile phone camera. Try to test these out before starting with a student. Make video calls to your family and friends before taking it into a professional situation.
Check your Wifi
It is worth calling your broadband provider at this point to make sure you are on the best package for home usage. You’ll now need daytime coverage, when before you were most likely at school. If you can, site your laptop near to your router so you can take advantage of an ethernet cable, rather than relying on Wifi. It will give you a guaranteed signal with no dropout.
CONSIDERING YOUR STUDENTS
In a school, there are universal levellers that help students to leave any disadvantages outside the classroom. But when you are teaching students at home, these can be more prevalent. Before you start teaching consider that not every student will live in a house fit for purpose. The downstairs may be small or open plan. Their parents may also be working from home, or they may have younger siblings making noise. Broadband may be being shared among the larger family and the signal may be weak.
The effort we go to in a school setting to break down barriers and make every student feel confident may slip away in this unusual environment.
Also, consider that attention levels will be vastly different outside of school. There are more distractions. You will have to consider new forms of teaching that perhaps weren’t on the curriculum at this stage. Composition online is getting easier with a multitude of apps mentioned elsewhere in this magazine as well as ensemble video performances, and these types of extra teaching may well supplement existing work. For example, why not consider adding a collaboration for two students into your one-to-one instrumental work?
TRANSFERRING YOUR TEACHING
Make assignments simpler
It’s much harder to give advice on a task online. Wherever you can, simplify the instructions and make the task easier to understand. If you have already written instructions before moving online, don’t just use the same sheets. Go back and adjust the guides.
Make deadlines clearer
You won’t have the luxury of students showing up in your classroom and being reminded regularly, so be bolder with your communication of deadlines and send weekly updates and reminders.
Use every angle
Depending on what you are teaching, use every format available to you. Rather than have the students look at your face for an hour, share a screen and show short videos, powerpoint graphics, photos or even a question as large text. The more you mix the visuals within the lesson, the more likely you are to hold attention and the more likely the students will retain information. Don’t forget you can also send web links in the chat feature for students to research afterwards – but remember to tell the students to save them or cut and paste asap, in case they disappear once the lesson is over.
Keith Ayling is a Senior Lecturer in Songwriting at Leeds College of Music, a songwriting workshop leader and the media manager for the Music Teachers’ Association
www.keithayling.com
Twitter: @keithayling
Find more on our #CanDoMusic page here
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