Once you've connected to the Virtual Classroom the following features will be available to you as the Instructor, during the session:
Share Screen
Click on the Share Screen button to present to your attendees.
A pop-up will prompt you to choose to share:
Your Browser Tab
Only the current Browser Window
The entire screen
Once you've chosen the specific screens shown for these options, and slick Share, the "Share Screen" button will turn green, to indicate that it's in use.
Whiteboard
Sharing the Virtual Whiteboard (VW) enables you to bring your session to life!
Click the Whiteboard to switch to the VW. This includes a Toolbar, with the following features:
Colour palette: Used for changing text colour or lines made when annotating with your cursor
Rubber/Eraser: Used to remove specific annotations made on the VW.
Text box: Used for writing clearly in different sized font.
Insert image: Used to show any image uploaded from your computer.
Insert document: Used to show any document (PDF, Word doc.) uploaded from your computer.
Screenshot: Used for taking a screenshot of your present screen and downloading it (useful for reviewing Team Members' work or storing specific session content for the future).
Undo.
Redo.
Clear the entire VW of all annotations, images and documents.
Settings for Team Members: Used to control whether Team Members can or cannot write on the VW.
Chat section
Within both a Live Class and Webinar, attendees can ask questions and engage in social learning by typing in the Chat section. The Instructor is able to turn this on and off.
Team Members can speak with their peers and the Instructor, but only within a Live Class, this is not possible in a Webinar session.
The Instructor can see the list of participants and can remove anyone from the session, turn off their webcam or microphone, if necessary.
Low Bandwidth
Use Low Bandwidth if there are difficulties with an attendee's connection. This will cut the live feed video of that particular participant, to help balance the connectivity.
This means that although the attendee can't be seen, they can still see/interact with the lesson as normal, and also be heard by everyone.
These are all the fundamentals for navigating and controlling your live sessions! But what about tracking time spent in a session?
Tracking Time Spent
Managers and Admins who want to keep track of the time Users are spending learning in a Live Class/Webinar session, can capture this when using the HowNow Virtual Classroom (HNVC).
Users can attend their booked session, while their time spent within that class, gets captured by HowNow - from beginning to end. This is then displayed in three ways….
Content main page: Duration - this displays the time for each individual session within a Live Class
Content main page: Average Time Spent Learning - a summary card that includes times for Live Class, Webinar and Events
Content sub-page: Time Spent - this displays the User’s collective total time spent, across all sessions.
For example…
Dave books the session at 1.30pm.
He joins the Live Class for the full 1-hour duration.
Once the class ends, the 1-hour record is captured in the data table (Content sub-page).
The Time Spent column will allow his Line Manager (or any Admin) to see how much learning Dave partook in during the class.
Managers can use the Mark as Attended option, for any User who may have joined a session, from a direct link, outside of HowNow (and simply anyone who didn’t access it via the Join Class button).
With the above in mind, it’s important to note the following…
All Live Classes, Events and Webinars on your organisation's workspace - that existed prior to this feature - have been given Time Spent values, based on their own Durations, as the default option used.
The status for a session can change from Attending to Attended, for a booked User, if they access the session link, without clicking the Join Class button on the Connection Test page (the page prior to actually entering the classroom). They would have attended, but with no Time Spent recorded.
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