Preparing for Synchronous Sessions

Knowing your tools at hand

Before we dive into talking about designing your session and the elements that you should consider when doing so it may be useful to talk about the tools that you will have at hand in your synchronous online platform.

While it's not usually effective or recommended to start designing a learning event thinking about the online tools you would like to use and then building your design accordingly, it does make sense to be at least aware of the tools you will have available in order to design a session that is indeed possible to carry out in your platform.

Now, no two web conferencing platforms will be alike, but many will have similar features and tools. For example, Zoom currently offers us the ability to:

• share any type of document (e.g., PDF, PowerPoint, Word doc) or whiteboard - and allow participants to annotate them
• put participants in virtual breakout rooms for pairs or small-group work (and/or allow them to move themselves to and between rooms - a new update that just happened late September)
  
• launch polls and share poll results
  
• share our desktop so that participants can see something on our computer
  
• have our participants raise their virtual hand, show emotions through reactions emojis, etc.
• have a live text chat with others in the room, publicly or privately
  
• verbally speak with others in the room and see each other through our video feeds

Get to know the platform that you will be using for your synchronous online work and then have its capability and functionality in your mind as you start to design. Remember, it IS possible to use other web-based tools alongside platforms such as Zoom. Start a forum discussion if you'd like to know more about some options in this regard.