Synchronous Options

Online Faculty Development Course

Text Chat: An Internet Classic!

"Synchronous Learning" usually means live-remote meetings via webcams or microphones - see below. But if you can also opt for a simple, real-time text chat system. These were popular on the internet years ago, and are still around as features of systems like YouTube, and really, text messaging.

D2L has a chat system built in, and it requires less equipment, bandwidth, time, and effort. This might be what you want for synchronous class meetings, office hours, or just conversations with individual students.

For D2L's chat, students need only an internet-capable device. No microphones or speakers!

Web Meeting or Video Conferencing

For faculty transitioning to online or remote learning, web meeting or conferencing may appear to be the obvious choice. Can we have remote interactions just like classroom interactions, and thereby avoid re-thinking how we teach? If so, why didn't a comprehensive discussion of synchronous web meeting come up earlier in the OFDC?

There are benefits and drawbacks to web conferencing, and as we'll see below, it isn't necessarily an easy way to migrate F2F teaching methods online.

At Canisius, we have a Zoom license, and you can learn about it in our Zoom Resource.

We also have available Google Meet, which is a simpler, but quite capable system.

Benefits

With realtime video and voice, you and your students can more quickly establish your personalities within the course, and a sense of community among its members.
Learning occurs at the speed of conversation, similar to a classroom discussion.
You can present multiple media at once: your voice, slides, or even other video content.
With free options, students can use web conferencing in groups, independent of a whole-class meeting.
Meetings can be recorded for later review by students.

Drawbacks

More than most other technologies, lots of things need to work properly: microphones, speakers, and possibly webcams need to be connected to healthy, relatively new computers or smartphones. Stable, strong internet connections are required.
Troubleshooting support from ITS and COLI are limited, since they cannot help with hardware issues remotely.
Students know meetings can be recorded, so they may expect it, and may not be as engaged during the meeting. They may ask for this, so be prepared.
More active participants need a quiet location, free of distractions, to join a class meeting. Noise and background activity can distract everyone in a meeting.
Variations in lighting, camera quality and angle, and other aspects mean that facial cues or expressions are not as readable as in true face-to-face conversation.
If Zoom meetings are required, this forfeits a major advantage of online learning, because students do not have the schedule flexibility that comes with asynchronous learning.

Requirements for Video Conferencing

All participants require a working microphone and speakers.
All students should make certain their device is properly configured for live-remote participation. Students should test these on their own. You may help them by hosting a brief introductory meeting at the beginning of the semester where everyone can take time to orient themselves with the technology. (see below.)
Obviously, any synchronous meeting must be announced beforehand. Build this into your syllabus, citing specific dates and times. Or in the case of F2F or hybrid courses, make clear and reiterate that a live-remote meeting is the backup plan for inclement weather.
If attendance in many remote meetings is required, it should be made clear in the catalog. Students should be aware that your course is not entirely asynchronous, and plan accordingly.

Don't Be In a Hurry

Given the technical complexities listed above, tools like Zoom and Google Meet require more preparation than is generally obvious. If you plan to teach with it regularly, you should:

Decide which tools in Zoom you want to use, and watch all relevant tutorials and instructions in our Zoom resource and at Zoom’s support site, well in advance of your first class.
Make sure you have the necessary hardware you need, and that it works, before committing to any Zoom plan.
If you need to, create a free, private account, separate from your Canisius account. (You’ll need a separate email address for this.) Then use two devices – your PC and smartphone, if necessary, to join a test Zoom meeting. Better still, join colleagues in a Zoom meeting so you can all try out whatever features you’re planning to use. This accomplishes two things: you verify that your hardware, Zoom account, and Zoom app are all working together, and that you know how to use features you need, such as screen sharing or even breakout rooms. Run through as many steps as possible in rehearsal.
Ask students to help you test anything you do in Zoom, before you need to do it in a real class period. They’re often patient and happy to help. Plus, this builds a greater sense of learning community in a course.
Consider having alternatives and workarounds, in case things don’t go as planned. Decide what’s not strictly necessary, too. If you are teaching a class or conducting a meeting, having a webcam is great but audio and perhaps your slides are more important. But quickly try out Google Meet, so you have that as a backup in case Zoom becomes unavailable when you need a web meeting tool.

ITS and COLI personnel can help you troubleshoot problems, or find workarounds. But if you decide to use Zoom with only hours to spare, and without trying out your plans beforehand, there’s a greater chance that last-minute support, if even available, won’t fix the problems that may arise.

Even after rehearsing, be patient with yourself the first time around. Small problems may come up that may take a moment or two to solve, and your participants can often help you sort them out. Once you’ve rehearsed and successfully hosted your Zoom event, then likely repeat events (such as classes) will be great. But if you get a new microphone, or are using another new feature, it may be worth trying it out before an important event.

To Zoom or Not to Zoom?

If synchronous web meeting seems to have additional complications, should we use it all? That depends on what we want to accomplish. But generally, where possible we should choose asynchronous alternatives that take best advantage of available internet tools, rather than default to Zoom as a supposed direct replacement for classroom teaching.

A wry comment on administrative meetings (in Higher Ed and other sectors) is "that meeting could have been email!" Ask yourself if what you want to do in class could really be some other form of communication or better still, asynchronous activity (such as we've discussed in the OFDC.)

Good uses of Zoom are:

An Introductory Meeting, or "Meet n' Greet."

Host an early meeting where all participants briefly introduce each other, and you answer any early questions about the syllabus or course in general. This can be a great way to build social presence in the course. This is a great idea for the second, or even third week of class, so that students need not add the meeting to their calendar at short notice.

Real-time Discussion

If you believe that in your course, student-student interaction is best done in discussion that is real-time voice conversation, then synchronous web meeting is ideal. But if these meetings are regular and required, students should be made aware, in the course catalog, program literature, and admissions process if live-remote meetings are a requirement.

Optional Meetings

synchronous meetings can be optional. These could be study sessions for upcoming exams, or optional conversations where students can ask questions about course materials.

They might offer bonus points, or be alternatives to other graded activities. For example, students may attend a synchronous meeting and, for participation, earn five points each. Or, students can miss them and earn the five points through reflective writing assignments, or video projects.

These options can potentially limit the size of any particular meeting, while giving students who cannot schedule the meetings a chance to do well in the course anyway. Try to schedule the meetings at different days or times of the week.

Student - Student Meetings

You need not be present for your students to meet online. You can encourage students to meet in small groups, in a more-or-less formal way. If required, you can ask them to record their meeting. (These might be best kept limited in length, perhaps, twenty minutes each for three groups.)

Here's a simple diagram covering just a few possibilities, with or without Zoom. If you reflected on it, you could probably draw in more branches for your course, program or discipline.

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