Do you remember your first ever Zoom or Google Meets or Microsoft Teams experience?
Was it up to your expectation in terms of clarity, interactivity and effectiveness?
Well, we are pretty sure you were as clueless as the person who initiated THE meeting.
Likewise, for many of us who discovered and engaged with online lessons for the first time (be it as a student or tutor), the first experience could be a bit bumpy and awkward.
Whether it's in terms of technical issues, content or even engagement, there's always room for improvement.
If you are currently preparing for a new online lesson as a student or teacher, we got the perfect solution for you!
In this article, we will look at how you can make the best out of your online learning experience through a series of education tools.
Top Gadgets/Tools To Have For The Best Recording & Streaming Experience
First, let's talk about the gadgets and devices to kickstart a smooth online tutoring experience.
Whether you are using a company computer, laptop, pad or even a simple mobile phone, it's important to take the following teaching/learning resources into account.
A good webcam, earphones and microphone [Sound and audio quality]
While most PCs and mobile phones come with a webcam camera feature, you can always invest in a good external webcam camera if you are not satisfied with the original captured quality.
This is especially important if you are teaching or learning subjects that require great concentration of steps or workings like online cooking, Mathematics or even piano lessons. The same principle applies to earphones and microphones when the educators need to explain or when students need to listen concurrently throughout the lessons.
Imagine the frustration of the educator and student during an online language lesson when they cannot hear each other during vocabulary repeating exercises to practice their pronunciation and intonation.
Adequate lighting/ tripod [Good angle and focus]
Next, if you are constantly in the online teaching/online learning mode, especially when it comes to recording, we highly recommend you to get a LED lamp ring or panel.
You can get an affordable LED lamp for less than RM50 on Shopee or Lazada.
Nobody likes to view a dark recording or streaming, whether it's in the context of work or studies. Getting a LED lamp will certainly help the viewers to focus better.
Apart from lighting, online tutors can also utilize an adjustable tripod (commonly used by many Youtubers and live streamers).
When it comes to online learning, an adjustable tripod enables tutors to show their notes, and workings on their whiteboards or papers throughout the sessions. We understand that at times it could be very difficult to show the student everything via the mobile screen when you have to demonstrate something personally.
Once the tutors are done with the work, they can adjust the tripod to show their faces again. It's seriously very flexible!
Image by Freepik
Digital pen /whiteboard [Clear directions and instructions]
Again, this depends on the subjects and also the tutor's teaching style.
Some tutors prefer to get "hands-on" by writing everything from A to Z for their lessons. If you are an online tutor who is working with a Pad, you can get a digital pen to help you.
For those of you who prefer the old-school method, you can also get a portable and small whiteboard to enhance your tutoring experience. A good whiteboard will certainly come in handy for subjects that have lots of theories or calculations.
Take a look at your study desk now. Could it be time to do some shopping?
Ways To Maximize Zoom For Online Tutoring For Group Lessons
It's safe to say that Zoom took the world by storm in 2020 and it is still going strong in the world of video conferencing.
Not only that it offers basic but comprehensive features for free, it is also extremely easy to use. Furthermore, it also comes with a variety of features to enhance your video recording/ streaming session.
Having said that, Zoom is a great tool for one-to-one online tutoring as well as group tutoring sessions.
Here are three features that you should regularly use whenever you are having any lessons.
Polling and Quizzes
Polling is a great way to break the ice and also to test one's understanding towards a topic/subject.
You can set the polling to be single-choice or multiple-choice options, depending on the questions that you plan to ask.
Each poll can have a maximum of 10 questions and you can even enable the anonymous feature to encourage the learners to be more expressive and truthful about their answers.
Slides [Share Screen]
This is the essence of online tutoring, isn't it?
With the share screen feature, you can present the slides using Microsoft PowerPoint or Canva or even Pretzi.
After presenting the slides, you can even attach the soft copy in the message feature for the learners to download.
Breakout Room
For bigger learning groups, breakout rooms are an essential feature to facilitate smaller group discussions among the learners and also the tutor.
Discover more about the advantages and disadvantages of online learning.
Exploring Canva For Online Tutoring
Apart from real-time online lessons and pre-recorded online lessons, online learning also encompasses other learning resources.
Whether it is through well-curated slides or topical notes to selected questions, many tutors and students turn to Canva these days to have a diverse and comprehensive online tutoring experience.
Regardless if you are a tutor or a learner who loves to create beautiful and engaging learning materials, Canva is a powerful educational tool that can be mastered easily.
Let's take the following three examples:
1. Infographics
Infographics essentially help us to capture data visualisation. To make sense of different data by organising them in a form of a pie chart, graph or tables to have a clear overview of the topic we have learnt.
Examples: Reasons why music is important for child development, 10 steps to live a healthy life.
2. Storyboards
Storyboard is a great feature to help you to organise your thoughts in a creative and simple way. You can use several visuals, actual images and include the relevant points to describe your thought process.
Examples: Storyline of an advertisement, marketing campaign, animation
Photo by Kaleidico on Unsplash
3. Mindmaps
How many of you here are mind maps maniacs? (*raises hands in silence*)
This is a useful tool for tutors to break down complex notes into simple information. The various visualisations also help learners to capture the most important information at one glance!
Who says online tutoring can't be fun and engaging?
Effective Methods To Boost Engagement During Online Tutoring
Apart from Zoom and Canva, there are also other effective ways to foster interaction and engagement during your online lessons.
If we are honest, asking questions face-to-face is not everyone's cup of tea. Some students might be shy or they prefer to take things slowly after the lesson ends.
Here are three recommended methods to make sure every student gets to participate and interact with both the tutor and other participants (if any).
Utilizing Padlet
Padlet is truly a must-have online teaching and learning tool.
It acts as an amazing communicative online bulletin where everyone can post their thoughts, music, images or findings there.
Introduce pre-recorded assignments
If the subject that you are teaching/learning requires face-to-face demonstration, pre-recorded assignments might work well for our fellow introverts.
They can have all the time to monitor themselves and do what is necessary without having all eyes on them. Less pressure, more motivation to engage!
Facilitate consistent Q and A (through chat)
Last but not least, there's always the messaging feature on Zoom or through other social media platforms. You'll be surprised that some students can be quite "chatty" on text.
Some students and tutors actually prefer chatting through text because there is a legit record of the entire conversation, so they would know what was covered and not forget the important information.
Learning Online Effectively With A Superprof Tutor
Now that you have reviewed the necessary tools and methods to have a comprehensive online learning experience, you still have one final key to unlock!
It's none other than a reliable and experienced online tutor!
Granted that there are many people offering online lessons these days, you might wonder how and where to start properly instead of just randomly googling on the Internet.
Image by Freepik
Let us introduce you to Superprof, an amazing tutoring platform that pairs students and tutors in the most effective and convenient manner!
First, head to the Superprof Malaysia homepage and indicate the subject that you are interested to learn. From there, select the online option and other filtering options (maximum budget, learning level).
Based on your inputs, the system will direct you to a personalised pool of tutor profiles. You can say that they are "tailored made" based on your preferences.
For example, if you want to find a French online tutor that can teach advanced French and charges RM50 an hour, you can do so in just a few clicks with Superprof!
After confirming the details of the tutors (basic information), you can proceed to contact the tutor to finalise the details of your future online lessons.
Online lessons can be a breeze and effective when you have the right tools and the right online tutor!
Have a wonderful learning experience!
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