# A Lesson to Demonstrate a Few Techniques for Online Meetings

*This work is licensed CC-BY 2020 by [Jonah Duckles](https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8985-3119) and contributors*

**This is supporting material and the outline for a lesson where learners can *experience* and *participate* in the techniques of online collaborative calls. At the same time the lesson should talk about those techniques and how to implement them in participants own meetings. It should be both *participatory and experiential*.**

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**Online workshops** - These workshops should take about one hour and will take place on a shared Zoom session. We will demonstrate participatory techniques and talk about ways you can use them in your own. We'll also talks about ways to invite and normalize contribution and demonstrate how break-out groups can be used in Zoom. If you're interested please click over to the [Workshop List](https://hackmd.io/rnVkhe5wSpaEx_Lv1Nef0Q?both) and add your name for a time/date that works for you.

Online meetings can have varying cultures. From audio only meetings with people talking over each other, to broadcast online video calls with moderated question/answer webinars. There are some really great middle-grounds that take advantage of several technologies in tandem to create experiences which are rich and participatory. These kinds of meetings can be even more engaging than in-person meetings.

Running online, engaging and interactive meetings is possible! It requires each host to commit to intentionally making the meeting participatory and doing pre-work to ensure the meeting has clear prompts and activities. Each host each brings to their call unique cultural practices, and techniques which can help the meetings run smoothly and in a participatory and engaging ways. Communities such as The Carpentries, rOpenSci and the Mozilla Science Lab have had cultural practices for some time now around engaging and participatory meetings. This document largely stems from experience in participating in those communities, but through contribution it can grow to reflect other cultural practices and techniques. The workshop outlined below is intended to give learners a taster in 60-minutes of a few of these technique in-action.

How we engage with each other online has its own unique culture and cultural practices. It it takes some amount of intentionality to develop these practices within yourself and your community. This document serves as a teaching guide and reference for those hoping to bring these techniques to new communities.

## Learning Objectives

* Demonstrate participatory norm formation in multi-party video calls using shared documents.
* Allow learners to experience participatory contribution in several forms (roll-call, ice breaker, Q&A, Breakouts, Community Discussion)
* Encourage multi-modal engagement with/without video.
* Share and experience examples of good practices in call/meeting management
* Experience break-out rooms and group prompts to launch small-group discussions
* Provide resources for further experimentation and learning

# Workshop Outline

## Welcoming participants

It is important to welcome people to the call as they arrive. It gets a bit repetitive, but particularly if you're bringing a new community together, think of this like standing at the front door as dinner party guests arrive. You should be welcoming and kind as you invite people into the meeting, also accepting and expecting late arrivals. Expect for productive time to start at something like 3-5 minutes past the hour and set this expectation as people trickle in. This also sets the tone for kind and jovial interactions with participants. As you welcome people, you can guide them toward a shared document (as detailed in the next section).

## Audio/Video Platform

There are many video platforms out there. Some free, some free to get started and with limitations and others that are fee for service. Most of this workshop will focus on the specifics of the Zoom platform, but can also be translated to other platforms as available. [Below we detail](#Video-Conference-Tools) many other platforms that are available should you not have access to Zoom.

The advantages of Zoom are that it has clients for every major platform, and allows users to readily connect with WebRTC should they be unable to install a client. On top of that it has the ability to have break-out groups, allowing you to take a call with 50-100 participants or more and break them into small groups.

As part of introductions, especially for a group where all members are new to one another, it is good to include a brief review of the platform (e.g. how to raise/lower you hand, where to mute/unmute, how to see other participants in the meeting, and where to click to solve technical issues). This should only be very brief, and doesn't need to be recorded. It is a good idea to have someone in your group who can help people 1:1 in the background so you can proceed.

## Advertising your meeting in advance

In order to drum up participation in your meeting you'll need to do some pre-work to set an agenda and pitch the meeting to participants. Using blog posts, social media posts and other means you can spread the word about your meeting and how to get involved. Setting up a shared document in advance of the meeting with open access permissions will allow others to see the agenda and register their interest.

One very important aspect of advertising a meeting where participants could be anywhere in the world is getting the ways in which you communicate the time correctly. The [Event Time Announcer](https://www.timeanddate.com/worldclock/fixedform.html) is a good resource to create a persistent link which has an "Add to Calendar" link allowing people to add the event to their calendar into their own local timezone.


If you don't want to rely on timeanddate.com you can export your event from your calendar (iCal, Outlook, GoogleCalendar etc.) as a file and share that file with participants.

## Use a shared document

If you do nothing else, do this! A shared document is a great way to focus participation in the meeting. The shared document can serve as a way for:

1. People to check-in/share their name/contact info
2. Have a clear agenda
3. Have participatory note taking in real-time
4. Simple polls and formative assessments of participants
5. Allow for small groups/break out groups to share with the large group
6. Give space for non-verbal updates.
7. Allow you to have break-out groups share the outcomes of their group with the large group.

If you do one thing with your online meeting, having a shared space where all participants can share information, links, snippets etc in document form is highly advised. The document allows people on the phone, and in a video call to engage, share information and get access links and other resource.

### Normalizing Contribution

One of the first things to do with a shared document is to normalize parallel participation in the document. Often you can do this with a prompt to participants to enter their name into the document. The magic of these shared documents is when 10-50+ people are typing at the same time, and building a valuable, useful resource for those who may not be able to attend the meeting, and a set of notes as an artifact of the meeting.

Once people are logged in, you can further normalize participation with an ice-breaker exercise and prompt. As people trickle into the meeting you can have them answer a [prompting question](#Ice-Breakers), thus further normalizing their invitation to contribute to the document. This seemingly small act can pay dividends later when you ask people to contribute to the document, they already have, and that initial hesitation is reduced.

Throughout a shared meeting, you can invite contribution from the participants. Inviting those with a proclivity for note taking to take notes for the benefit of the community within the document can leave a great artifact of the meeting for those who are unable to attend synchronously.

If you have short presentations or speakers, you can invite participants to write questions for the speakers under the agenda item for each speaker, place a few empty bullet points under a "Questions" heading.

At the end of your shared document you can also invite feedback, non-verbal updates and contributions from participants. This is a space where they can share projects or ideas, or interesting articles and resources they may have found. Really anything goes in this space, and it can be a great way to invite those less confident in speaking to the participants to share.

### Using Chat

The chat feature in a zoom call is an invaluable way to help manage the meeting. When a call is first started, posting a link to the shared chat can be useful. If you have participants trickling in, Zoom chat's don't show new attendees the messages sent before they logged in, so it can be necessary to re-send the link a few times.

One way to manage a call with 10s or 100s of participants is to be rather aggressive at muting anyone who isn't the current speaker. When people are called on to speak they can unmute. In order to know who to call on, in the chat you can have a convention of typing a message "/hand" which shows you are raising your hand. If you're able, and have a collaborator, it can be good to assign them to helping you monitor the chat and to handle calling on people.

Zoom does have a hand-raising feature, but it is not consistently available on all clients. To be accessible to all clients, we use the chat.

# HackPad Template

(((((((HackPad Template Begin)))))))

## Running Collaborative Online Meetings - an interactive workshop

**Sign up now! by adding your name below** Sign up to learn a few skills you can use in running online meetings with large groups.

Time: March XX 2020 - [Click here to see the time in your time zone](FIXME_WITH_LINK_TO_MEETING_ANNOUNCER) so you can add it to your Calendar.
At the meeting time you can connect via Zoom here: FIXME_WITH_ZOOM_LINK

**Make sure to give yourself a few minutes extra before the call to download the Zoom client if you haven't used Zoom before.**

[Find other workshop times, or share other workshops with friends](https://hackmd.io/rnVkhe5wSpaEx_Lv1Nef0Q)

Your host for this workshop will be:

FIXME_ADD_YOUR_NAME_AND_DETAILS

* Participants

name - affiliation - twitter handle (optional)

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* Ice-breaker

In the HackPad, enter your response to the following prompt:

[[HOST, FEEL FREE TO CHANGE THIS TO ANOTHER ICE BREAKER]]
In your opinion, what is the best ice cream flavor? Why is it the best?

* Name - response
* Name - response
* Name - response
* Name - response
* Name - response
* Name - response
* Name - response
* Name - response
* Name - response
* Name - response
* Name - response
* Name - response
* Name - response

* 🖖Welcoming Participants
* [[HOST_NOTE: Use White-board sharing to prompt people to use HackPad, sign into the roll call and respond to ice breaker]]
* Background and Welcome -
* We are here to share our experience with you so that you have some tools and techniques to try in your next call.
* Introduction to HackPads (MarkDown)
* Roll Call (check that those who signed up are present)
* Ice Breaker
* Questions / Comments
* 1
* 2
* 3
* 4
* 5
* (add more lines as needed)
* 📺 Video Platform
* Why Zoom?
* Alternatives
* What platform have you used (if you see yours already place a +1 next to it)?
* 1
* 2
* 3
* 4
* 5
* (add more lines as needed)
* Specific questions about using Zoom?
* 1
* 2
* 3
* 4
* 5
* (add more lines as needed)
* 💬 Using Chat setting the tone for acceptable etiquette
* /hand
* Code of Conduct
* Questions / Comments
* 1
* 2
* 3
* 4
* 5
* (add more lines as needed)

* 📢 Advertising your meeting
* https://timeanddate.com is your friend
* Screen Sharing demo of timeanddate.com meeting time announcer
* Questions
* 1
* 2
* 3
* 4
* (add more lines as needed)
* Share other resources/techniques you use
* 1
* 2
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* 4
* 5
* (add more lines as needed)
* 🤙 Shared Documents
* We're using HackPads for this call
* Discuss other options
* What does your organization use?
* 1
* 2
* 3
* 4
* 5
* (add more lines as needed)
* 📄 Normalize Contribution (Break out)
* Group discussion
* When we bring people together to meet, share their skill and knowledge, how can we make the best use of everyone's time?
* 10-min group brainstorm (groups of 3-4 each)
* Prompts:
* Introduce yourself to each other - where are you from, what kind of work do you do and how are you hoping to use the techniques you've experienced today.
* What challenges and opportunities do you see in bringing these techniques to your organization or community?
* How might you address the challenges? What might you be able to create with the opportunities?
* Group 1
* Notes:
* Group 2
* Notes:
* Group 3
* Notes:
* Group 4
* Notes:
* Group report out of break-outs
* 👋 Closing
* 🤫 Non Verbal Updates
* Paste links to any other resources or articles you know about that could help the broader community.

((((( END OF TEMPLATE )))))

## Host Checklist

* [ ] - Do you have access to a Zoom License seat? To host breakout rooms this is necessary. Consider BigBlueButton as an alternative that supports break out rooms as well.
* [ ] - Have a look at the documentation for Break out Rooms on your chosen platform [Zoom](https://support.zoom.us/hc/en-us/articles/206476093-Getting-Started-with-Breakout-Rooms) and [BigBlueButton](https://support.blindsidenetworks.com/hc/en-us/articles/360024516512-Create-and-manage-breakout-rooms)
* [ ] - Create a new empty HackMd pad and paste the above call template into it. Add specifics for your call and then add links to
* [ ] - Go to [timeanddate.com](https://www.timeanddate.com/worldclock/fixedform.html) meeting planner and select a time that suits you.
* [ ] - Fill in the [Call Schedule Pad](https://hackmd.io/rnVkhe5wSpaEx_Lv1Nef0Q) with call details
* [ ] - Check the timeanddate.com link. Does it look correct in your timezone?
* [ ] - Make sure you've set the language you'll be teaching in.
* [ ] -

# Appendix

### Video Conference Tools

* Zoom
* Hangouts
* Jitsi
* Teams
* BigBlueButton
* Others

### Shared Documents

* [Google Docs](https://docs.google.com) - Google documents can be great, but sharing them can be a bit tricky, particularly if you have restrictions at your organization around sharing documents. For public meetings, look to share your document to "Anyone with the link", or understanding who your attendees might be, you can choose a sharing most suitable for the participants you expect to have.
* **Advantages:** Scales to 100s of concurrent users, and is backed by Google. Can paste images directly into the doc. Has an in-line chat in the document itself (this can be somewhat confusing if you have other chats as well)
* **Disadvantages:** Depending on how you set it up, the user may need to have a Google account to access. If you need to keep things secure and people may not have Google accounts, this may not be the best choice.
* [HackPads](https://hackmd.io/) - Hackpads can be great, but they can require a bit of understanding of Markdown formatting. This isn't strictly required, but it isn't as natural to people used to using Word/LibreOffice. They scale to a large number of concurrent users, and they ...?
* Etherpads
* Others?
* [Zoom Online Event Best Practices](https://support.zoom.us/hc/en-us/article_attachments/360047066292/Zoom_Online_Event_Best_Practices.pdf).pdf (100 KB)

### Ice Breakers

* What is your favorite children's book?
* What is your favorite word or phrase and why?
* If you could have dinner with anyone living or alive who would it be?
* Favorite ice cream flavor?
* What's your favorite comfort food?
* Tell us a joke!
* What is the best course you have ever taken? What made it great?
* What is the best conference/event you've ever attended? What made it great?
* Write two truths and a lie about you? We'll all vote on which one we think is a lie.

### Social Media Threads/Posts about online meetings/teaching

[Ethan White about Online PhD Defenses](https://twitter.com/ethanwhite/status/1240336385896316928)