Zoom for E-Tutorial

Having gone through the very useful training for “Zoom for online teaching (Webinar)” by CDTL, by Ms Charina Ong and Ms Kiruthika Ragupathi earlier this week, I decided to start to use this tool to facilitate my tutorials for my module CN2101: Materials and Energy Balances. Since the class is < 50 per session, I decided to go ahead with the face-to-face session, but also make the session available online LIVE to allow students to join remotely and interact with the session.

I would say its quite a successful attempt for a first try. There was not much problems. The tool is quite easy to use. I got students to participate, comment, ask even questions in the session. I asked students what they think of such an arrangement and the feedback were very positive.

Interesting Features:

Students in the class can “see” their friends who logged in online and there was some interaction even between the students in the class and their online classmates.

I used Kahoot to create a Quiz for the students. The screen sharing feature allow the Quiz Game to be accessed by both students online and in class. The interface was smooth using ZOOM. Some of the those who won the “top 3 prize” in the quiz is from the online participants. Students are responding and participating online and offline.

Technical considerations

Computer system: 
I used my personal Surface Pro laptop. The camera is therefore my laptop camera. But i can also plug in my USD webcam. (Problem with Surface Pro is that there is only 1 USB port, since i use it for my presenter, I didn’t do it this time)

Audio System:

Since I am doing a face to face tutorial together with the online streaming, I need to make sure I am still audible when i walk around the classroom for the session. The tool that I used was the Trekz Titanium (Bone conduction) Headset which is hands-free and wire-free (blue

Teaching tools:

I used primarily powerpoint slides to present to the class for the session. I normally do this session with powerpoint and visualizer to work through problems by writing. But since i cannot share visualizer with students using my laptop, I had to prepare all materials as powerpoint slides. Some writing was done using my pen for the Surface Pro.

Proposed Ground Rules:

For short sessions like a tutorial (45-50min), it can be very disrupting when students are late. Both walking into the class or logging into the class late. Therefore it will be really useful to make it very clear to students the importance of being punctual.

I do hope that more experience sharing within the community, we can share how to improve our delivery of online sessions so that students can benefit.

Hope everyone stay SAFE and HEALTHY and continue to learn!

Best Regards,
Cindy