Holding meetings remotely is easier than ever! With either Google Meets or Zoom, you can facilitate a conversation with ease. Consider these suggestions when facilitating large group meetings:
Class interactions
Explain at the beginning of the meeting or class how you expect people to interact. Should they stay muted until they speak? Should they wait to be called on?
Troubleshoot Choppy video
With high speed internet, all meeting participants will be able to have their videos on with ease. If somebody is experiencing choppy video, turning webcams off will improve the audio quality. With extreme choppy audio and video, be prepared to ask everyone to turn their videos off.
Muting Conventions
Ask students to mute their mics when they aren’t speaking. If you are using Zoom, you as Host can Mute All participants at once.
Meeting Chats
Many if not most video conferencing products include a text/chat feature. Establish norms around the text chatting feature prior to meeting or at the start of a meeting. Some instructors find the chat function useful as a different way of encouraging interaction. Chat can also be helpful for bringing in more voices, especially those who are not native English speakers or may be joining the meeting from a noisy environment.