8 Remote Lab Experiences
Zoom Setup with the Web Portal
Make sure you are using a pro version of Zoom to get full functionality. Log in to zoom.us using your web browser and go to settings. You will find a lot more versatility than the limited settings in the zoom app. Key meeting settings I like:
- Auto saving chats
- Co-host
- Polling
- Screen sharing
- Whiteboard
- Nonverbal feedback
- Join different meetings simultaneously on desktop
- Breakout room, allowing host to assign when scheduling
Under recording settings
- Automatic recording to the local computer
- Save chat messages
Synchronous Demos
You can enable views of multiple elements from multiple directions by have multiple smart phones in the zoom meeting, pointed at different things. Suggested by Julian Yamaura in an ASEE webinar 2020-06-18. He talked about having views of multiple different instruments in real time. https://resources.asee.org/ has more.
Tracking Attendance and Participation
From the web portal for Zoom, you can use the reports menu tab to generate CSV reports for recent meetings. A usage report will tell you who was there, when they joined and how long they were there. A poll report will provide all the answers to any poll questions you asked, either anonymous or by username depending on the question setting. A poll asking about netid could help aligning external logins or aliased logins to student identity.
Create a meeting template with multiple poll questions as a basis for recurring sessions.
Multiple Meetings!
This approach is possible now that zoom allows multiple simultaneous meetings. Create a recurring main Zoom meeting and have all students join that meeting at the start of the session. Make any explanations to the entire large group. Keep the volume up on that meeting so you can always hear people in the main room. (Use the volume mixer on windows, or a third party app like background music on the mac to separately control the volume on each meeting. Unfortunately, it looks like background music broke with the update to Mac Big Sur, but sound control (commercial app, signed developer certificates) has a beta that I will try out.)
Get each TA to create their own recurring Zoom meeting on their own accounts. (It appears there can only be two meetings open at the same time on a single host account.) When the intro is done, have all the students and TAs join those meetings in addition to the main meeting. It looks like you can’t be recording more than one meeting at a time, so if you need recordings of the TA meetings you will need them to make them for you.
As instructor, join each of the TA meetings so you have the main meeting and maybe three sub meetings. If you join them sequentially, you can arrange them on the screen in the same relationship as the volume sliders in windows volume mixer, or mac background music. Set the volume low in the TA meetings so you can overhear in the same way that you do walking around the lab plaza.
When you need to address the whole class, unmute all the meetings to make an announcement. This can only be audio, as it appears you can only share your screen to one meeting at a time. You can share your camera feed to all of the meetings simultaneously.
Get your TAs to use the “ask to unmute” button in participants when they want to get your attention. You can then join the TA meeting to help answer questions, share screen, etc.
This approach is working well in MECH 217 (3×60 student sections) as of mid term fall 2020.
Breakout Rooms
After multiple tries with my large class I can send the students to randomly assigned breakout rooms, but the preassigned rooms have failed repeatedly. Some students will go to the breakout rooms, while others who have logged in with a known email address get stuck in the main room unassigned. This has made the breakout room option untenable for my lab class of 180. Zoom mentions a limit of 200 on the list, and that may be the issue, as some are identified by multiple addresses.
My latest strategy is to have each TA create their own meeting and let the students choose which meeting to be in, as above 2020-10-27.
Use a lab group list for preassigned breakout rooms. Create a CSV file from your class list and upload it.
Allow students to return to the main room. This will allow them to move back and forth from the lab groups breakout room to the main room to ask general interest questions, and then return.
The meeting can only have one host at a time. Calls for help from breakout rooms go only to the host. This makes it difficult to track requests
Enable TAs as co-hosts so they can visit multiple rooms. This seems to be a bit of a problem. Co-hosts only get assigned to one breakout room and will go from the main room to that room automatically. Once in a breakout room, they can use the breakout rooms button at the bottom of the computer app screen to move themselves to another breakout room. The breakout rooms button and functionality are only on pro accounts.
Phone and ipad only allow moves to and from assigned breakout rooms.
Breakout Rooms with Teams for Groups
This approach may be obsolete now that zoom allows multiple simultaneous meetings. It looks like you can’t be recording more than one meeting at a time. You can use the output selector to manage sound from the ^ beside the mute button, or you can use a system volume control from the operating system level like volume mixer for Windows or background music on Mac.
The lab session zoom meeting has a main room (ILC Plaza). Everybody can move to the Plaza. The instructor will usually be in the Plaza and may call all the participants together in the Plaza to start the lab session, or to provide some general information partway through the session. Students and TAs can come to the Plaza to ask the instructor questions, or listen while others ask questions.
The zoom meeting also has breakout rooms, each of which is home to a TA and multiple lab groups. These are the halls outside the Plaza where the group rooms are. Students in particular lab groups can come to the hall to ask their TA questions and may escalate from there to the Plaza to get a better answer from the instructor. Holding these question sessions in the halls means other groups can listen to the answers and can have intergroup discussions.
Each individual lab group of students should create their own team space for the course in Microsoft Teams. They can use this team to share files, chat, and hold small video meetings with just that lab group present. Think of this team as equivalent to an individual group room in the ILC. It’s space that belongs to the students, where instructor and TAs will only be present by invitation. When they need help, they go out into the hall to talk to a TA, or to a plaza to talk to the instructor.
This structure gives students agency to decide when they need help and go find it. It allows a group to send one member for help on something while the others continue with other work. It means the instructor and TAs will be findable in known locations, which could be a real problem if they are wandering off to breakout rooms with individual groups.
Beating the Echo Chamber Problem
If Teams and Zoom are both active, then both will be using the mic and speakers on the computer. Sound from Zoom will be heard by Teams and repeated around the loop with major echoing. This can be addressed by muting one of the apps on all of the computers in the loop, or by using headphones or earbuds so the mic doesn’t pick up the sound.