Enhancing Online Learning: Harnessing the Power of Virtual Classroom Features

Conferencing Feature

What to use it for:

Video usage

·       Capturing Engagement: Encourage learners to turn on their cameras during video streaming to foster engagement, maintain focus, and make lessons more interactive, dynamic, and social.

·       Fostering Classroom Culture: Having cameras on helps build a sense of community and shared experience in virtual classrooms, strengthening group identity.

·       Clarifying Complex Concepts: Use video clips to demonstrate and explain difficult grammar points or concepts. These visual reinforcements aid comprehension and should be easily shareable via the institution’s platforms, such as Moodle, Canvas, BrightSpace, Google Classroom, Blackboard, etc.

·       Visual Examples: Videos are powerful tools for illustrating abstract ideas, transforming theory into tangible learning experiences for students.

Background choices

●      Enhancing Lesson Themes: Select backgrounds that match the lesson’s theme, such as a virtual landscape for a lesson about travel or geography, but only while teaching that part of a thematic unit. However, the use of institutional backgrounds is a must to look professional.

●      Minimizing Distractions: Choose backgrounds that reduce visual distractions, particularly when students are working from environments with potential interruptions. And help them choose virtual backgrounds while being connected to class from places where there is much movement.

●      Following Institutional Guidelines: Adhere to any school or institution-mandated backgrounds to maintain professionalism and consistency during virtual classes.

Audio sharing

●      Listening for Gist: Use audio for tasks where students extract the general idea or main points from a listening exercise, exactly as you probably did when teaching a F2F class.

●      Listening for Detail: Incorporate audio for activities that require students to listen closely to specific information, fostering detailed comprehension. But teach them how they can also share sound during a virtual session.

●      Setting Context: Play or provide audio clips that provide background context before launching into discussions or assignments, helping students connect with the topic. If audio cannot be played, Plan B is to have links to audio clips ready to be shared with learners.

List of participants

●      Attendance Tracking: Easily view and record student attendance in real-time, ensuring accurate documentation, especially if this has to be transferred to a different platform used by the institution you work for.

●      Balanced Participation: Use the participant list to nominate students for participation, ensuring everyone has a chance to contribute equally.

●      Manage Microphone Etiquette: Monitor and mute students' microphones when background noise becomes disruptive, maintaining a focused learning environment.

●      Assign Roles: Designate roles like "greeter" or "moderator" from the participant list to help manage class flow and responsibilities while on task in breakout rooms.

Screen sharing

●      Live Demonstrations: Share your screen to demonstrate software, websites, or processes in real-time, helping students follow step-by-step instructions. Don’t simply share classroom presentations or pages from a digital book.

●      Presentations: Use screen sharing to present slides, videos, or other multimedia content during lessons, enhancing the learning experience. But also allow students to interact with multimedia.

●      Collaborative Problem-Solving: Teach and then allow students to share their screens when working on group projects or presenting their solutions to the class.

●      Instant Feedback on Tasks: Teachers can guide students through specific tasks or assignments by viewing their work directly via screen sharing and providing real-time corrections.

Interactive whiteboard

●      Real-time Collaboration: Use the whiteboard to encourage students to collaborate on tasks, brainstorm ideas, or solve problems together in real time.

●      Visualizing Concepts: Teachers and students can draw, write, or diagram concepts, making abstract ideas more concrete and easier to understand.

●      Interactive Feedback: Provide immediate feedback by marking student work directly on the whiteboard during class activities or presentations.

●      Engagement and Creativity: Allow students to visually express their thoughts and creative solutions through drawing and annotations on the board.

Breakout rooms

●      Small Group Discussions: Divide the class into smaller groups for focused discussions, helping students engage more deeply with the content. These rooms allow us instructors to meet 70% of student talk time and 30% of teacher talk time.

●      Role-Play Activities: Use breakout rooms for students to practice role-playing scenarios such as sketchpads: impromptu conversations, class presentations, or work-related simulations in a controlled setting.

●      Peer Feedback Sessions: Assign students to small groups where they can provide constructive feedback on each other’s work, encouraging collaborative learning. But as mentioned before, assign roles to students in breakout rooms.

●      Individualized Support: Teachers can rotate between breakout rooms to offer personalized guidance and answer specific questions students might have. If 12 minutes are assigned for a breakout room task, and there are 4 groups, do spend some 3 minutes per group paying attention and jotting down notes related to areas that need to be improved and specific feedback.

Annotate tool

●      Highlight Key Concepts: Use annotations to underline, highlight, or circle important ideas within documents or presentations, making it easier for students to follow along. Don’t forget the “Noticing Hypothesis” that stresses the fact that students must be helped to be focused on important information.

●      Interactive Student Engagement: Allow students to make their own annotations, encouraging active participation and peer-to-peer corrections. For this purpose, make sure you allow students to use annotations when setting the synchronous session.

●      Diagramming and Visualization: Teachers and students can use the tool to create quick diagrams or sketches to represent ideas or processes. Use this tool with whiteboards that can be then downloaded and shared with the class.

●      Clarifying Content: Annotations can be used during lessons to immediately clarify confusing concepts or instructions, providing visual support. It can also be used to help students notice the connections between new concepts being studied.

Content lock / permissions

●      Controlling Focus: Temporarily lock student access to other features while presenting important information to ensure focus. We don’t want students to scribble on your presentation while you are explaining.

●      Assigning Roles: Limit certain features to participants (like screen sharing) to avoid disruptions while allowing interactive parts when necessary.

Chatbox

●      Quick Questions and Answers: Facilitate instant communication where students can ask questions or provide answers without disrupting the lesson's flow.

●      Silent Participation: For students who may be shy or prefer not to speak, the chatbox allows them to engage and contribute to class discussions.

●      Polls and Instant Feedback: Use the chatbox to conduct quick polls or gather feedback from students during lessons.

●      Group Work Support: During collaborative tasks in breakout rooms, the chatbox enables group members to communicate and stay organized, to share snips of information, and to send documents to group members.

Private messaging

●      Individual Feedback: Send personalized messages to students without disrupting the flow of the class, offering one-on-one guidance or feedback when necessary.

●      Peer Communication: Encourage students to collaborate through private messages during group activities or breakout sessions.

Reaction icons

●      Non-Verbal Feedback: Students can quickly express their understanding, agreement, or emotions through reaction icons like thumbs up, applause, or raised hands.

●      Checking Participation: Use icons to gauge whether students are actively following along or need further explanation without pausing the lesson.

●      Engagement Monitoring: Reaction icons allow students to engage with content non-verbally, encouraging interactive participation.

●      Polls and Voting: Teachers can conduct quick class polls or votes using reaction icons, helping make decisions or get input without interrupting the lesson.

Virtual hand raise

●      Structured Participation: Allow students to virtually "raise their hands" to signal when they want to speak or ask questions, keeping the class organized.

●      Facilitating Turn-Taking: Use this feature to ensure everyone has a chance to contribute without interruptions.

Recording

●      Lesson Replay: Record live lessons so students can rewatch sessions at their own pace, ensuring better comprehension and review opportunities.

●      Catch-up for Absentees: Provide students who missed a class with the recorded session so they can stay up to date with the course material.

●      Reflective Teaching Practice: Teachers can review recorded lessons to reflect on teaching methods or assess class participation.

●      Documenting Class Activities: Use recordings to document important activities or student presentations for future reference or institutional purposes.

Online storage (like the one offered by Microsoft Teams)

●      Centralized Resource Hub: Store lesson materials, multimedia content, and assignments in one place, ensuring easy access for both teachers and students.

●      Collaborative Document Sharing: Students can upload and share their work for feedback or peer review, facilitating a collaborative learning environment.

●      Class Organization: Keep class materials organized and accessible for students to refer to during the course, promoting independent learning.

●      Secure Backup: Use online storage to keep backup copies of essential documents, lesson plans, and resources to avoid data loss.

Meeting calendarization

●      Lesson Scheduling: Schedule regular classes or meetings in advance, providing students with a clear timetable for upcoming lessons.

●      Deadline Reminders: Display key assignment deadlines or important exam dates to help students stay organized and manage their time effectively.

●      Automated Alerts: Set reminders for upcoming lessons or meetings to ensure students are well-prepared and aware of scheduled events.

●      Booking Office Hours: Schedule virtual office hours if your institution offers them, so students can reserve one-on-one time for additional help or personal guidance

.

Mobile compatibility

●      Flexible Learning Access: Allow students to join lessons and access course materials from their mobile devices, ensuring greater accessibility for those on the go.

●      Instant Communication: Facilitate real-time communication and interaction through mobile platforms, enabling students to stay connected with their class.

●      Real-Time Notifications: Ensure students receive updates, notifications, or reminders on their mobile devices to stay informed about class activities.

●      Multimedia Integration: Provide seamless access to videos, audio, and interactive materials that can be viewed or used on mobile devices without disruptions.

Document sharing

●      Immediate Access to Resources: Share lesson materials, articles, and resources with the class in real time for immediate use or reference during lessons.

●      Collaborative Editing: Enable students to work together on shared documents (coming from OneDrive, DropBox, or Google Drive) for group projects, allowing for real-time collaboration and feedback.

●      Assignment Submissions: Provide space for students to submit their assignments digitally, streamlining the grading and feedback process.

●      Real-Time Feedback: Annotate and give feedback on students' submissions directly within shared documents, providing timely and constructive input.

Polls and surveys

●      Quick Check for Understanding: Gauge students' comprehension with real-time polls during the lesson.

●      Gather Opinions: Use polls to collect student preferences or viewpoints on lesson topics.

●      Assessment Tool: Employ surveys to assess students’ progress or gather feedback on course content or teaching methods.

AI companion or similar

●      Real-time Summaries: The AI companion can generate live meeting summaries, helping students catch up on key points if they join late or miss parts of the lesson.

●      Question Answering: Students can ask the AI companion (in Zoom) questions during the lesson to clarify doubts or get more information without interrupting the flow of the class. Or later on they can do the same by going over the Read Assistant (in Microsoft Teams).

●      Instant Feedback: The AI can offer immediate feedback on student work, such as grammar or style corrections in writing tasks, enhancing the learning process.

●      Task Automation: Use the AI to automate repetitive tasks like attendance tracking, scheduling, and providing reminders about homework or upcoming assessments.

●      Customized Learning Pathways: Based on student performance or participation, the AI companion can suggest personalized resources or exercises to support individual learning needs.

●      Content Summarization for Review: After class, students can use AI to review the summarized content, reducing the need to rewatch entire lessons and helping them focus on critical learning points.

Accessibility features

●      Live Transcriptions: Enable real-time captions for students who are hard of hearing or who may benefit from reading along during the lesson.

●      Screen Reader Compatibility: Ensure that your platform is compatible with screen readers for visually impaired students.

●      Language Translation: Use automatic translation tools to provide live captioning or translation for students who are learning in their non-native language where applicable and when necessary.

●      Keyboard Navigation: Highlight the ability to navigate the platform using only a keyboard for students with mobility challenges.