Teaching Strategies and Techniques

Online Learning 2.0: The Benefits of Live Video for Communicating with Your Students

By John Orlando
October 1, 2013

A few years ago an airline commercial showed a businessman flying to a far-off meeting. In the voiceover he explains that although the customer was in Brazil, anything truly important needs to be discussed face-to-face.

While the limitations of online teaching preclude on-site meetings with students, the fact remains that seeing a face adds essential elements to a message that cannot be conveyed by email or phone. Our faces humanize us, making others more receptive to our messages. Plus, most of what is communicated comes via nonverbal cues such as facial expressions. Without these cues, messages can be misinterpreted.

The humanizing element is especially important when the discussion is on a difficult subject, such as poor performance on an assignment. Text by its very nature tends to be interpreted more sharply than intended, and as a result can de-motivate students, causing them to turn off the feedback. A smiling face can reassure students that though they have work to do, all is not lost and they are capable of making the necessary improvements.

Every online instructor should be using Skype frequently to contact students. It’s a good practice to always recommend a meeting by Skype when there is a problem or question. A Skype session can accomplish far more than either an email or a phone call can, thus saving faculty time in the long run having to address the same problem over and over.

Ways to use Skype

There are many ways for faculty to use Skype. These include:

Have a first meeting. Faculty should have a live meeting with each of their students within a week of the course start date so they can get to know one another. This is critical to establishing the rapport needed for a learning relationship. Skype should be the very first option for hosting the meeting, as it allows students to see and hear the instructor right at the beginning of the course, to ask questions, and to get motivated for the learning that is to come. Instructors can send each student a welcome letter or email at the beginning of class with the following link to a video that will walk students through the process of setting up an account: . <li>Discuss significant problems with students. When a student has a significant problem, especially a writing problem, a simple “See the Writing Center” is not going to do much good. Pointing out individual writing problems in the student’s work, as well as general categories of problems, is important, but when the problem is serious it’s more important to speak to the student live. Complex ideas are better expressed in a face-to-face format, where the faculty member can craft the picture of the issue that he or she wants the student to be aware of, and to ensure that the student properly understands what needs to be done to improve.</li> In addition, Skype’s Screensharing option allows instructors to pull up the work itself and point out exact locations in the text where there are problems. This is a powerful tool for fixing writing problems. Faculty can go over specific passages and ask the student to suggest different fixes, thus producing a live learning opportunity. <ul> <li>Speak with other faculty or administrators. It’s a good idea for faculty working at a distance from their institutions to Skype other faculty in their departments, as well as administrators, to start the relationship-building process. This meeting will facilitate the sharing of ideas and discussion of problems later on. Here is a tip: Administrators who have spoken to an instructor face-to-face are far more likely to go the extra mile to help that instructor than are those who have not. The time invested in these relationship-building events will more than pay for itself later on in a smoother teaching experience at the university.</li> <li>Contact your mother. Even older parents who are technophobes can generally be taught to use Skype. Call your mother at least every other week on Skype. This will pay for itself in more ways than can possibly be listed here.</li> </ul> <h2> Google Hangouts</h2> While Skype is good for one-on-one meetings, Google Hangouts (formerly Google Huddles) is preferable for group sessions. Hangouts is a feature of Google+, Google’s social networking site, and can host up to 10 live video feeds at once. Anyone who signs up for a free Google account gets a Google+ account by default. While Skype allows for multiple users, it tends to encounter audio and video problems as the number of users rises; Hangouts is far more stable. Hangouts also has a nice central screen format that allows a user to share his or her desktop, a video, or even a Google Drive document, while all the other users can see each other at the bottom of the screen. Drive is really helpful for doing group editing sessions, since all the participants can edit the Drive document in real time while they are discussing it. Each user gets his or her own cursor color and name attached, which makes for interesting viewing as multiple cursors move across a document at once. Students can use Google Hangouts for coordinating or presenting group projects, while faculty can use it to hold live tutoring sessions. In fact, a faculty member can broadcast a Hangout to far more than 10 people at once—you just can’t see all the participants—and even save a recording of the session as a YouTube video (which can be made private or downloaded to be shown elsewhere). Take a look at this helpful video on how Google Hangouts works: <iframe src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/7K06lHu4gDk" frameborder="0" width="560" height="315">. Despite the asynchronous nature of online education, live discussions still have an important place in learning. Skype and Hangouts should be near the top of any online faculty member’s toolbox.

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