Forget stupid: “Person, Woman, Man, Camera, TV”
Consider: Camera, Screen, Move, Variety, Experiment
2020! Yesterday I taught the final class of my NYU online summer course. Before the course began I had some anxiety over how online would work. I worried that students might not turn up, or speak, or engage with the course material. HOWEVER, while we had a couple of technical glitches in the first week, overall the experience proved overwhelmingly positive. I lucked out with students, who brought their A game to every class, and were a joy to meet. I shall miss them!
As mentioned, I was unnecessarily anxious so I’ve put together some pointers on what worked for me, hoping to help someone who is currently experiencing similar concerns.
Camera, Screen, Move, Variety, Experiment
Camera
For my purposes the camera on my Mac laptop proved unsatisfactory: poor resolution, narrow field of view, and fixed in position. I purchased a Logitech C922 Pro Stream Webcam 1080P Camera for HD Video Streaming. I find the camera’s biggest advantage is that it’s not attached to my laptop, meaning I don’t need to be attached to my laptop! The camera gave me both the freedom to face a larger second screen, and to MOVE.
Screen
Trying to see everyone in the class, while also keeping track of the class outline, while also occasionally sharing windows from the desktop is difficult to pull off using a tiny laptop screen. I beg-borrowed a second screen, which provided me with a lot more real estate. This allowed me to see all the students on one screen and freed up my laptop screen for other window activities. I mounted my camera on this second screen.
Move
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