Going live again

It’s always good to have a plan on how you want to check your students’ learning and on their well being, I’m sure that isn’t a surprise to anyone. For online one to one sessions, this also means planning for different eventualities. Do both you and your student have reliable access to fast internet? What will you do if one or both of your internet connections go down?

For me there are two aspects to one to one sessions, the learning check and the well being check. But these can be planned for in similar ways. One way to go about it is to set them questions to think about before hand, I would actually have them send their responses before the session so you have time to gather resources to help your student, either with subject material or more generally.

For both aspects, I would set question sandwiches. By that I mean one thing that is going really well, one thing that they need help with or that is going badly, and then finish on another thing that is going really well. Following that pattern, or something similar, keeps the meeting positive overall and helps prevent negative spirals of thought.

By setting the questions beforehand, and requesting the responses before hand, you can begin to head off possible technology problems as well as begin to work on solutions to problems your student(s) might be having. Worse case, the conversation happens via typing rather than speaking but best case you have a solid outline for what will be discussed, set expectations, and problem solve.

These sessions don’t need to be recorded unless you’re student requests it but you are likely using the same or similar tools as you are for teaching sessions so you’ll still need to make sure that the app(s) you are using offer chat functionality, interface well with screen readers, and offer automated live captions.

As I’ve said before Zoom, at this time, needs a third party app or a third person to create captions so MS Teams is currently the better app as it has automated live captions and it integrates with screen readers without any additional input from the meeting organiser, presumably you, so there is no burden on anyone to declare that they need captions or on you to activate them. I’ve also said that Skype has similar functionality to MS Teams if that is a more realistic choice for you and your students. Standardising the app(s) you use for live communications with your students builds familiarity for both you and your students, enabling you to do more with it so it is worth choosing just one or two apps for this function.

Onto the next type of session …

I come across question and answer sessions most frequently in relation to coursework but they could be an understanding check on you part. Like one to one sessions, you’ll want to conduct them on apps that have captions and chat functionality as well as the integration with screen readers. These session generally involve more people but can be set up in a similar way to one to ones in that you can send your questions ahead of time and receive replies. This will enable you to really focus on what the majority of students need out of the session.

Presumably, the answers to the questions raised will have relevance for at least the life of the cohort, so recording both the questions and answers in some way would be really helpful. You may want to create a page in your online space of frequently asked questions, you may want to provide video recordings of the question and answer sessions, or both.

Whichever way you decide to record the questions and answers, you need to state how the sessions will be recorded and then be consistent with both how and when. Providing the most amount of options to access the content as possible is the most accessible but the number of options you can create will be limited by time and resources however, a frequently asked questions page and a video recording should be achievable.

Creating both in an accessible way is not as arduous as you might imaging with the right tools. I swear I’m not being sponsored by Microsoft but Teams is, once again, a good app for this purpose. As I said earlier Teams provides automated captions which form the basis of an automated transcript in recordings. How videos are stored, including the ability to edit captions and transcripts, is currently in flux (changing from Stream storage to OneDrive storage) but should be finalised some time this month (February 2021), delays not withstanding.

In any case, as with full teaching sessions, having captions and transcripts for recordings older than 14 days is a necessity under the 2018 accessibility regulations (in the UK) and there are similar regulations in the USA and in Europe, but using an app that automates the creation of captions and transcripts means you have something, which is better than nothing. It also significantly shortens the amount of time it takes to prepare them. You might even make editing them a revision exercise for students by asking students to watch the video in conjunction with reading the transcript and finding the errors — thus creating a reason to go back through the video, both those that were there and those that couldn’t make the session, but you could make it a requirement of students who didn’t attend to ensure those students access those videos and, of course the information. This will depend on you institution and your students though so be prepared to do it yourself.

Transcripts are useful for students you’d never think would use them. Some students use them to skim through to find the information they need, some don’t have the bandwidth to be able to attend the session or watch the video, some students will need the transcript to help with translation, some students won’t have been able to hear because the dog(s), child(ren), partner, construction, etc are too loud, some won’t be able to hear because they are deaf or hard of hearing. Despite the list here, I’m sure I’m still missing lots of reasons that transcripts are useful.

OK, so you have the technology down, a schedule for updating the frequently asked questions page, a plan for what will be covered in the session, you’ve sent your questions and received replies, but will anyone engage in the actual session?

Engagement is particularly tricky, especially when the session is recorded and blank screens with just initials or a name make it hard as an educator to be engaging. I touched on this when talking about full teaching sessions but engagement in question and answer sessions is slightly easier to bring about by mixing the questions sent in beforehand and live questions. It gives you something to talk about and plan follow up questions and/or extended answers based on questions already submitted.

Time for another list…

- Plan for a lack of connectivity
- Start and end sessions on a positive note
- Use questions submitted ahead of time to plan answers and solutions
- Recordings need to have transcripts within 14 days of the session, choose your apps to help you do this.