So You Are Presenting A Schools Webinar with Channel Talent ..... Here Is A Guide
Who Takes Part & What Is An Online Schools Event Like?
Events are predominantly for sixth form students although we also run them for younger year groups. A particular year group or key stage is normally specified to schools once the session and its target audience have been discussed with the university. At each school, students will mostly take part as a group gathered around a pc or a whiteboard, using a webcam and microphone to interact.
The interactive nature of the webinar is an important element and so, for a session delivered by a single university, we
will usually involve up to 5 schools at a time. Beyond that number
the experience can become devalued and risks becoming a one-way delivery, much
like watching YouTube or TV. The number of schools increases for the sessions that involve more than one university. (More details on the right4me and insight4me formats can be found below).
At each school audiences typically range from 2 to 30 students
depending upon the format and content of the session, its objectives, and the size of schools involved. The avaerage number of students per school is 11.
As A University Speaker, What Will I See And Hear?
You will be able to see and hear each of the participating schools. Each school will also be able to see and hear you and the other schools. The technology is voice activated and so you will see the school talking, or school that spoke last, on the largest portion of your screen and smaller images of the other schools. You can usually adjust the view that you have and we can run through this directly prior to the session or during a familiarisation session in advance of the actual date of the event.
What Technology Is Required?
The IT connection to Channel Talent events is made through Bluejeans. Having tried a number of different platforms we feel that Bluejeans provides the reliability, flexibility and ease of use that is required for this type of event. As a speaker, your access to Bluejeans can vary depending upon the university you are representing. For example, you may connect from your own laptop (pc or mac), from a support laptop, or from a videoconferencing room but all options are effective. The person coordinating at your university will be able to advise. If this is the first time you have taken part and the equipment hasn't been tested, we would always look to run a brief test with you to check that the connection/audio/video is of sufficient quality to positively represent you, your subject matter, and the university. In addition to a live test in which we connect in too, you can check the connection to Bluejeans prior to this test by using this link to a test room that allows you to talk to a parrot (!) and so should indicate that you are able to make the connection: https://bluejeans.com/111/ There are 2 options with Bluejeans, connecting using the Browser option and connecting using the app. We recommend the app to presenters as it will give you more control over what you are able to see during the event.
Hints & Tips
The formats of the single university sessions are diverse and so we do not attempt to prescribe how they should be run. Through experience, however, we have learnt about what works well and what doesn’t. Many of these are also relevant if you are presenting with other unis in a right4me or insight4me event so please have a look through and then review specific details about the multi university sessions at the bottom of this page.
Weshould also stress that Channel Talent will be connected throughout the sessions and supporting and facilitating where it is needed without breaking up the flow of your event.
Interaction
Interaction is a really important element of these
sessions, differentiating the experience from recorded resources online. This is where the real value is generally added with trespect to inspiring students around the subject and the university. Here are some thoughts about how to manage interaction during the session:
1. It works well to engage students with a question or an
activity at the beginning of the session, if only to reassure you that there is
life out there!
2. Activities may be interspersed throughout the session and
schools can be given an appropriate amount of time to discuss an issue in their
groups and then to feed back and discuss
their ideas.
3. If the session is mostly discussion based then you will need to be disciplined in chairing the discussion and ensuring schools know when to open and close their microphones (see below). Addressing a question to
all schools will either result in silence or a cacophony as schools talk
at once. Channel Talent will be connected too and can facilitate/help with this as required.
4. If the session is more lecture based then breaking this
up in some way is advisable as students may get to the Q&A at the end and
be unable to switch out of a listening mode.
5. For Q&A at the end, it is also often a good idea to
give students a couple of minutes, time permitting, to consider questions rather than putting
them on the spot. Being open to questions about the subject matter, studying at
university and your own career/education is helpful.
6. If students are not forthcoming with questions, it is often a good idea to ask them questions instead.
Microphones
When more than one school is taking part, we ask the schools
to mute their microphones during the session to maintain the integrity of the sound.
1. With mics muted, you need to be specific
as to which school you are addressing and looking for interaction/ideas/questions
from. The school will then open their mic up to communicate and close it when
they are finished.
2. If you have asked students to discuss ideas in their
groups, it is advisable to also turn off your mic. This allows you to talk
without disturbing them.
Sharing Slides & Video
It is straightforward to share your
PowerPoint or other applications with the schools over the webinar. While schools can see both you and your slides and can control the size of the slides they see relative to the size of the video of you, we normally advise presenters to stop sharing
the PowerPoint when you are not discussing the slide/s. You can then reshare when
you are again referring to the presentation. We can run through this when we test beforehand or, if you have support at your end, they will normally be familiar with use of the remote for this or the controls on the laptop.
Sharing videos during a single university session is possible. Please advise Channel Talent as far in advance as possible and we will work out the best way of doing this so that the quality received by the schools is high enough. For sessions where multiple universities are presenting we recommend avoiding the sharing of video clips because the logistics of the sessions are generally more complex and the desired quality may not be achieved for all participants. Animations generally work well and do not need to be planned in advance.
Familiarisation
As mentioned above, subject to your available time and need we can arrange a time for you to familiarise yourself with the setup and to discuss the session. This typically takes about 20 minutes and speakers have said how much it helped them to mentally prepare for the session and to decide how to approach it. Familiarisation usually doubles as a test of your equipment and connection.
Multi University Events: insight4me
insight4me - Webinar Format
Multi University Events: right4me
right4me is very similar in format to insight4me. Instead of the curriculum focus, however, this format solely introduces degree courses in a particular subject area to current Year 12 and 13 students. These students are likely to have an idea about what degree course they are interested in but would like to talk to different universities in order to make informed comparisons. right4me is also more likely to involve 3 universities presenting rather than two. right4me - Webinar Format
We will indicate when time is up in each of the virtual rooms and you will then use the next link provided to join your next room until you have presented 3 times and spoken to all the schools.
The details about moving between the virtual rooms, interacting with the schools, the expected audience and sharing course details in digital format are broadly similar to insight4me (See above).
live and interactive
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Say Hello
Please do contact Channel Talent with any requests, questions or suggestions you have. We are always looking for new schools, universities and businesses to get involved and would be delighted to hear from you using the form on this page. If you prefer to speak on the phone, include your number and we will call you back as soon as we can.
If you are requesting a session for a school, please provide as much detail as possible including preferences relating to the timing of the session (times/days of week/when in the year it would be most helpful). We will then do our best!
Please note also that you can sign up to be kept in touch about events based on your particular interests.
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