10 top tips when delivering an online session

1. If the group members don’t all arrive on time, you can assign breakout groups to people as they arrive. You can do this work ‘behind the scenes’. Zoom helpful tells you if anyone is unassigned. So, if you do enter a breakout room pop back to real life occasionally to check there are no lost sheep. Also, if someone logs out and in again you will have to reassign them.

2. Send any slides beforehand to the Academy.
 
3. Think access: remember that your participants may have specific accessibility requirements. It is always worth asking people when they book, so you can ensure you are catering for all.

4. Be animated and smile a lot. If you use your hands make sure they aren't off to the sides of your video!

5. Wait and DONT PANIC for people to respond with buttons / to polls / writing on whiteboards. Pretend you are on an old style phone call from somewhere far, far away. They will get there.

6. Polls and whiteboards are fun and break up the pace - practice on friends/colleague in advance of the session.

7. STARE AT THE CAMERA. (Someone we know has a little smiley sticker next to their camera to get them to look there).

8. At some points you might feel like a radio host, but you can use old-school techniques such as asking participants to raise their hands if they want to share their current experience. If you feel weird say so – it helps connect with participants. We are all new to this!

9. Ask participants to mute their audio until they need to talk.

10. As some participants might have varying broadband qualities, perhaps give them the option of whether they would like to have their videos switched on. Flag the chat bar for everyone as an important way to get attention for those who don’t have videos switched on.