Our first ZOOM “Getting to grips with GCSE” to parents was relatively successful. To be expected, we made one or two errors, learnt one or two things and the trial prompted one or two ideas.
Second time around we provided a longer lead in time to the start of the presentation. Arriving fifteen minutes we welcomed attendees and used the time to show attendees around the ZOOM platform (chat, turning off video).
Less is more – as planned, we moved to Powerpoint (4:3) sticking to the published agenda, keep it visual but thinned out the content.
We moved to headsets – improving the audio.
We polled – these were positive.
We turned off the arrive/leave chime notification.
We have been asked for “Getting to grips with…”Science and History. One can only assume that these presentations are well received.
Future Meeting – we will include a ZOOM registration in the Meeting set up and make better use of the meeting description.
We still need to explore the host and co-host communication. Second, the recordings have been requested, these are large files and need to be uploaded to a cloud platform. This is, of course, creates more work. One unexpected benefit, the two staff involved has real grown in confidence as a result of taking on, and successful fulfilling the ZOOM challenge.
And this from the host via Twitter?
A useful way to communicate to parents – more impactful than a newsletter update and easier to organise/schedule than an onsite presentation #mathschat https://t.co/LTHvDxLHQx
— John Irvine (@johnrirvine) December 2, 2017
A key question for me, what is the benefit gained from a live webinar versus a recorded ZOOM presentation?
As an aside – we also used ZOOM to connect two Campus classrooms via screen share to Kahoot! Innovation and creative teaching.
Since this adventure, we ZOOM internally, with school, our end of year quiz. Visiting every tutor room leads me to the conclusion that LIVE and instant feedback, certainly adds to the event.
Furthermore, following a Safeguarding meeting, we had requests for these to be ZOOMed out rather than face-to-face. Note to see, success brings with it both positives and a change in expectation.