There are a number of software tools available such as Skype, Zoom, Microsoft Teams, etc. We are going to focus on Zoom as it is the easiest to use. I will not discuss all the functionality in Zoom, only the relevant parts. You can try this yourself. It is easy to navigate with trial and error.
Important things to know about Zoom
- Waiting room. When you set up your meeting, ensure there is at the very minimum a waiting room. The reason for this is that you can identify all students before they enter the actual meeting. The last thing you want is someone on the call who should not be there, who could put inappropriate images on the screen and/or be very disruptive. You may think that this never happens. All it needs is a parent to send the Zoom link to another parent, informing them of the lesson, say via Twitter or Facebook, for the meeting link to be sent to the world. When you email the parents, ask them to put the name of the child attending on Zoom when they join. Many children use their parent’s computer and don’t change the name. This will be displayed to you as a person you probably don’t recognise. Make it clear to parents that you will not let them into the class unless their name is displayed.
- Remove from meeting. Ensure you have found the Remove option under the Participants function. It is unlikely that you will need this; in fact, I have never needed this function. However, if a child is on your call and there is inappropriate material on their picture, or inappropriate noise, you can simply remove them from the call.
- Mute/Unmute function. A vital function you must know and will use in every lesson is the Mute and Unmute function. You don’t want background noise in your meeting. This means at times you will have to mute children due to background noise, which is nearly always other siblings or parents. You can unmute them to answer a question.
- Screen sharing. Every lesson you will screen share something like Lichess or ChessKid. This is a very important function. The two most popular types of screen share are 1) the Basic share, that shows your entire screen or 2) the Advanced share that allows you to show just a portion of your screen, e.g. you may want to show a Lichess study, but not the answers to the study that sit on the right of the screen.
- Participant Raise Hand function. Some children you will be able to see on screen, and they will raise their hands to answer a question. However, some children you will not see, and they may have a screen save instead. Children have an online Raise Hand function that they can use via their participant function. You will be able to see their raised computer hands and direct a question towards them.
Suggested format for a Zoom lesson
There are numerous different ways that you can run your lessons. Two possible structures are provided below:
- ChessKid / Lichess & Zoom Share Screen
- Lichess & Zoom Share Screen
