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How to share your screen and see your learners

Video tutorial on how to share your screen and see your learners.
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So when we’re in an online lesson and we want to share our screen, what happens is that the students– so at the moment, we can see all of the students in the room. There are six students. If you’ve got six or more students and you share your screen, then you can only see two, three, or four depending on your settings. We can see more. It does depend on your platform, but it’s really worth exploring the settings to find out what you can do. So here, in Zoom, for example, if I click on Share Screen and I show this website, here, I can only see four of the six students. And I have to click down here to see more.
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But if I click on the Show Grid video here, then it will give me more. But I can actually drag this out. Can you see? So now I can see all six students. I could drag it across more to see more of the students. I don’t have to stop sharing my screen to do that. It does cover the screen. But obviously, I’m showing something that I’m probably familiar with. So I don’t necessarily need to see it all clearly. And I can move it back and forth as I’m talking to students just to see who’s paying attention and who isn’t.

One difference between face-to-face lessons and online lessons is a reduced ability to see all your learners on screen at the same time. This may be because learners don’t switch on their video, you have a large class, or you’re sharing your screen which reduces the number of learners on your screen at one time. When we can’t see all of our learners at the same time, it can reduce our ability to assess their engagement, interest and focus, and identify any obvious issues.

Task 1

Watch this video tutorial on ways that you can make sure you can see as many learners as possible on screen when you’re sharing your screen in a group of six or more learners. Make notes.

Task 2

It’s important to remember that what we see on our screens is not what our learners see. We have a different view because we’re the platform host, and of course learners will be using a variety of different devices. It can be helpful to help learners who use a laptop to select appropriate settings when you or another learner is sharing their screen, so that they can see both what is being shown, and each other.

Watch this video tutorial for learners which shows them how to change their view settings in a learning platform. Decide if this would be useful for your learners.

Go to the next step where you can ask us your questions.

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Teaching English Online

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