Coronavirus outbreak has completely torn the world apart. It has thrown normal lives of people across the world completely out of gear.
The otherwise roaring streets across the world have come to a standstill. Businesses have stopped their operations, schools have been shut indefinitely, and people have been forced to remain inside their homes. Almost half of the world population is under lockdown due to the outbreak.
With schools continue to remain closed and students forced to remain at home, disrupting their education greatly, tech companies around the world have stepped forward to offer several solutions to help students and teachers continue the education amidst the coronavirus crisis. Among the many, Google’s new tool for video conferencing – Google Hangouts Meet – has emerged as one of the most popular ones. The Meet provides a streamlined way to connect with people on campus or around the globe. Many teachers now started to widely use the tool to reach out to their students and colleagues, especially during this coronavirus lockdown. Well, if you are a teacher and want to make the most of your virtual meetings with your students or colleagues on Google Meet, here we bring for you a few tips to make it a successful one.
Tips for successful virtual meetings with Google Hangouts Meet:
Schedule the Meet
First of all, schedule the Meet or send an agenda to everyone before the meeting. Post the date and time of the live meeting 3-5 days before the lessons take place. However, do not post the Meet link till the day. Just post the details.
Join early to connect with students
Post the Meet link and join 10 minutes before the schedule start. You can use this time to connect informally with the students to make everyone comfortable.
Plan a sponge activity
As in any offline meet or classroom teaching, late comers or joiners interrupt the whole lesson/classroom. To avoid happening this, wait at least 10 minutes before you start or everything is in place.
Moderating and taking notes
To make the most of the virtual meetings with students or colleagues on Hangouts Meets, teachers can make one person the moderator of the meeting and one person to take notes on a shareable document.
Put everyone on mute
Before you begin, ask everyone to mute their mic and video during the lesson. This will conserve bandwidth and prevent interruptions. Now, start recording.
Begin with a question
To engage the class, begin the discussion with a question. It will ensure participation of all the students in the meet. To make the virtual lesson a successful one, teacher should try to make every participant involve in the meet.
Use the chat to ask questions
Teachers can use the chat to ask questions and share resources. But they should make a copy of the chat transcript before closing.
End with questions
To make the lesson a complete and successful one, end it by asking questions on students. Invite students who have additional questions to stay and ask verbally. This not only reviews what students have understood or learnt but also generates students’ interest for next lesson.
Post the recording
Make sure that you stay until everyone has left the lesson. End the meeting, delete the Meet link from classroom and replace it with the recording.
Last, but not the least, if you’re using video, look at the camera, and not the screen.
If you don't know or confused on how to record a meeting in Hangouts Meet, you can watch the video below:
If you are running a virtual lesson using Google Meet, or if you want to make the most of the virtual meetings with the tool, following the above tips can make yours a successful one.
