Tools, Tips & Tricks for Remote Teaching, Training & Workshops

Have you ever heard about the Kubler-Ross’s five stages of grief? It reflects human emotional response to trauma, and goes like this:

It happened to me over the last two weeks, but with remote teaching.

After experiencing the loss of 2/3 of my training & speaking gigs over the coronavirus pandemic, and being forced to move the rest of my workshops online, I went rapidly through:

• Immobilization (“Holy shit this is the end of my entire career.”)
• Denial (“No need to do anything, it’ll pass, Hellooooo May”)
• Anger (“&^%&^%$&%$ Covid-19)
• Bargaining (“How about I just run the workshops in Hangouts, is that enough?”)
• Depression (“There’s too many tools out there, I’m too old for this sh*t”)
• Testing (“How about I use Zoom, MS Teams, Skype and Meet at the SAME TIME?”), to finally,
• Acceptance (“I’m a remote sorcereeeeer”)

It was rough, tough and hard for me and my family, but I think I can say that finally I embraced remote teaching / training / facilitation.

You can check the outcome of my fast-track self-development here, by watching my impromptu webinar in staying self-motivated when working from home:

In this article, I would like to help you to go through your own phases of the “going-remote grief” mildly, by sharing my tips, tricks and tools. These are all based on my experience, failures and the notes I took while trying to learn the ropes of online teaching.

Important note: I’ll be updating the article as I learn new things I think you might find useful.

FIrst, the Set-Up

One of the things I learned the hard way early on in my consulting career was that no battle plan survives contact with the enemy.

That was exactly the case when it came to setting up my remote teaching station over the course of the last two weeks. After doing tons of research online, experimenting with different options and meticulously rearranging my desktop, I came up with an almost zen-like set-up for my online workshop (please, ignore the three zen-unlike empty coffee mugs):

No drawers opened. No books needed.

It didn’t last.

This is what it evolved to during a 15-minute, panic-induced effort to actually make it work during the webinar, as I discovered I’m talking to the laptop not to my microphone and my cam is showing me looking down all the time:

That’s “The Hitchhiker’s Guide to The Galaxy” under the laptop, if you were wondering.

So, finally, my remote webinar / workshop set-up, which I’m currently using (and used for the webinar I linked before) consists of:

• My beloved MacBook Air which experiences ALMOST NO keyboard problems, so it’s fine, really
• AmazonBasics Mini Condenser Microphone, which is absolutely amazing when it comes to the quality you get for the price (pro-tip: use the pop filter for better effect). Side note: I really recommend getting a good microphone, as sound quality makes more difference for your audience than video quality
• My wife’s iPhone working as an improvised, high quality webcam with a little help from the EpocCam app (that solution, however, works inconsistently, sometimes I must switch to my mediocre laptop camera or a borrowed webcam— again, I’m looking at you, Apple!)
• My old (12-years old, I guess?) Samsung monitor (don’t even have a link for that:D), which is very useful when I share slides in the presenter mode in Zoom
• Some random camera tripod with a camera handle
• The RANARP desktop lamp from IKEA (for extra lighting when it’s dark)
• Water bottle from the memorable Berkeley Culture Conference
• Two books
• An open desktop drawer
• A glass full of drip coffee goodness bought on Coffeedesk.pl

So, that’s it. I must say that currently I’m really happy with my low-cost, high ROI setup and the only things I’m still considering getting are:

• The green screen for switching backgrounds in Zoom
• A new webcam as soon as they become available outside of the black market

Things to remember when running a remote workshop

Ok, so now that we’re done with the set-up, let’s talk about the things I learned during my first two weeks of going remote.

Finding the right software (or mastering Zoom for workshops and remote teaching)

In the first couple of days of trying to go remote, I had to decide about the software I’d use from then on. As you know, there are a lot of options (Skype, Hangouts, Meet, WebEx, MS Teams etc.). I went with Zoom. Maybe I was following the fad, maybe it seemed to me that it had better video quality, or maybe I just wanted to be associated with a company with on of the greatest increases in its stock value during the pandemic.

What I’m saying here is that while my decision to go with Zoom probably wasn’t fully rational (I used System 1, not System 2 for that), at one point I just went through the list of the things I needed my video conferencing software to do for me as an academic teacher, trainer and workshop facilitator, and Zoom passed the test with almost flying colors.

So I decided to buy the subscription.

Here’s the list of what Zoom can do for me — and you — if you’re making your living teaching.

• Sharing screen / showing slides. This is obviously the most fundamental functionality and Zoom does it well. The only thing that is necessary if you want to have a semblance of a typical training situation is that you really have to have a second monitor to display the slides, otherwise it will be impossible for you to use the presenter’s mode and to run you workshops comfortably.
• Dividing the group into smaller groups. This is absolutely key to running a smooth training and / or workshop, and Zoom does it really well with its “Breakout rooms” functionality. After you activate it in Settings, you can just divide your participants into groups, give them the task to work on (I mostly use Google Docs for collaboration), send them messages or even join them to monitor progress. Works like a charm.
• Engaging participants in a conversation. During my lectures and training I ask questions. A lot of them, to be honest. This proved to be a real challenge when running my sessions on line — the interactions are made more difficult when there’s little f2f interactions. Fortunately, Zoom allows your participants to give you nonverbal feedback using a couple of predefined keys in the Participants panel (yes / no / go slower etc.), so you can ask a simple, yes-or-no question and wait for the reactions from the audience (it even tallies them up!). For more complex questions, the chat box — or an actual conversation — work really well.
• Organizing discussions. Again, this is where the nonverbal feedback functionality works perfectly. To moderate a discussion, you just need to encourage participants to “Raise Hands”— this option is available in the Participants panel, and I’ve used it successfully to moderate a discussion of almost 20 people.
• Recording video. I really needed an option to record my classes, webinars and trainings to make them available to the participants afterwards. Zoom does it well, and it can do it on your hard drive or save it to the cloud. It also offers a couple of recording layouts you could use.

Setting ground rules for interactions

One of the things I assumed (wrongly) in my first online trainings and seminars was that the situation would be “just like any other class.” It was not. My first class could be classified as a disaster because I didn’t set the right norms and rules for the interaction, that I learned later in the process.

Here’s the list, more or less ordered in time:

• Ask people to check their software / equipment prior to the session. If possible, email everyone and ask them to check their Wi-Fi connection, camera and software installation. It’ll help all of the participants to avoid the chaos of stuff not working properly.
• Log in earlier. The same way you’d come 30 mins before the beginning of the training to set up the training materials, show up earlier to your remote workshops. If someone joins you, welcome them
• Encourage everyone (strongly) to turn their cameras on. I can’t stress this enough — if you don’t want to have an experience of talking to a mirror and don’t want to get paranoid about how many of your participants pick their nose, encourage them to turn their camera on.
• Make sure that everyone knows the rules of engagement. Each time, at the beginning of the session, it’s good to run a 5-minute technical and operational check-in. Show people the ropes of the software, familiarize them with different modes of interactions (chat box, reactions, non-verbal feedback, microphones etc.), ask them to mute the phones if they’re not speaking or asking questions.
• Encourage interactions, even if you need to force them. When I teach a regular class or run a training session, I don’t usually call out individual people, that’s until I get clear signals that they want to. I don’t have the same doubts on-line. Calling people out works — just make sure to inform people prior that you’re going to do that.
• Ask simple yes/no questions. A lot. I mentioned it before, but I’ll do it again — asking yes/no questions is the simplest way to activate your audience, and Zoom interactions make it really easy to do. Again, warn people in advance you’re going to ask them questions.
• Use the second monitor. If you’re using two monitors (I encourage you to do so), put the chat-box and participants panel on the second one. It really makes the process easier.
• Introduce a lot of short breaks. It’s extremely tiresome to stay focused when working from home, looking at the computer screen and participating in online tasks. Take 5-minute breaks every 55 mins and the people will canonize you (of course this does not make much sense during a 90-min class, if you’re an academic teacher).
• Prepare class materials earlier (in Google Docs, Mural etc.). If there is any group work, make sure that you make these available and pro-formatted. Google Docs works wonders, but I’m currently experimenting with Mural as well. Will update.
• Don’t just show up people in the break rooms. Small piece of advice — when you ask people to work in break rooms, don’t invade their space without warning, and even if you do make sure to do it quickly. Somehow, as my participants share, this seems more invading than a trainer just approaching the group in a regular training.

Final, random thoughts

Change is hard. But that’s how you grow.

Although it was really hard for me to change my attitude towards remote teaching, I really believe it helped me to grow as a teacher, trainer and workshop facilitator.

Before I go, here are some random, additional thoughts and tips that helped me through the transition:

• Ask your family for help. It would be very hard for me to adapt to the transition if it wasn’t the help from my family, especially my wife — teaching remote classes means figuring out how to divide the responsibilities, including the kids;)
• Ask your social network for help. There were a couple of things I wouldn’t be able to achieve without the help of my extended social network. The facebook hive mind has, for example, helped me with overcoming the webcam shortage by (1) suggesting that I use my smartphone (2) offering me to borrow one of their own webcams. Oh, and when I say “hive mind,” I mean real people. You know who you are. Thank you.
• This too shall pass. This has nothing to do with remote teaching, but with the process of transition itself. Everything that happened during the pandemic shows clearly that nothing lasts. This, too, shall pass. In times of crisis, seek help from your family, friends, but also take better care of yourself. It’ll all go away in the end.

So what’s next?

As I said, I’ll be updating this article as I learn new things, tools, and tips about remote teaching. One of the things I’m currently considering, for example, is using Mural in my workshops for collaboration (they offer one year free to educational institutions), on top of Google Docs.

I encourage you to experiment with your own ideas and setups, and share it in the comments or by engaging me on twitter or LinkedIn.