Discover some great ideas to engage your audience online. Remember engaging event involves more than watching a talking head. Plan ahead, know your audience and what you are trying to achieve. Use your passion and content knowledge to get the best out of your programs. Make the most of your resources and props and don’t forget to use these fun engagement ideas.
Fun ways to engage audiences online Heather Catchpole from Refaction Media
The Virtual Excursions training package has been coordinated for national delivery by Inspiring Australia NSW. It was produced and delivered by Fizzics Education, Sydney Science Education and Refraction Media with support from the NSW Office of the Chief Scientist & Engineer and state Inspiring Australia programs in NSW, ACT, QLD, WA and SA.
Australian National Maritime Museum is hosting a Pirate School for young pirate recruits. Learn how to become a pirate with the museum’s own resident pirate Grognose Johnny – he’s even set some homework activities for the young sea squirts!
Explore our newly developed series of online resources for students, teachers and parents, to help guide students’ learning while they’re away from the classroom. With subjects suitable for Early, Primary and Secondary learners, these resources have been created to engage students and guide further activity on the topics.
We will be continually adding to this page in the coming months as we create more immersive learning opportunities for students at home.
Whilst understanding how to use a camera and microphone during a live online program is essential, choosing additional content to interact with can make all the difference to the engagement of your audience. Thankfully many of the web conferencing tools have screen sharing capability, which means that you can share extra content that both help support your lesson and breaks up the monotony of a constant video of you as a ‘talking head’!
The following only briefly touches on the huge variety of options to things to share on-screen, as in reality what you can share is only limited by your creativity. What’s more, as long as you control the child safety aspects of your meeting, you can also have your attendees share their screen too which means the interactivity increases even further.
Whiteboard sharing for the win
A screen capture from full desktop sharing of Adobe Photoshop – Fizzics Education
Many of the web conferencing software have a whiteboard function. This means you can quickly draw on diagrams on the fly as you speak to them. There is even the option in some cases for multiple people to be able to draw onto the whiteboard at the same time. If your conferencing software doesn’t have a whiteboard function, you can screen share Microsoft Paint, Adobe Photoshop and other applications which will produce the same effect. You can also save the images and share them afterwards too!
Connect peripheral devices to share
Using a USB Digital Microscope to look underneath a fern – Fizzics Education
Your peripheral devices that you routinely use might well be fascinating to your remote audience! For example, not everyone can get USB powered digital microscopes easily. Why not share their images live? Simply power-up your digital microscope and then screen share the results! If you do some testing, sometimes you can find that the digital microscope camera is recognised by the web conferencing app itself, which means you can simply toggle between your camera and the microscope. There are also converters which allow your analogue microscope to share the images digitally too, a great way to microscopic organisms in more detail. Think about what device you have at your site that could be shared during your conference.
Use data logging live in your conference
Wouldn’t it be great to share live experiment results? Well, with screen sharing you can! There are plenty of data logging apps out there that you can be shared over a remote connection. One of the ones that Fizzics Education uses is Science Journal. It’s a data logging app by Google that uses the sensors in your smartphone or tablet to perform experiments! Record sound levels, magnetism, light levels, acceleration and much more. Very handy for your remote audience to see measurements in real-time of your experiment, plus you can pull the data file and share it to your audience either during the conference or afterwards as well.
Connect people together by sharing
Remote connections can often feel like a barrier for sharing experiences. Why not consider having your audience share what they are experiencing from their location? In early April 2020, Fizzics Education organised a Supermoon party, where people from Japan, the Philippines and Australia all were involved in sharing what they were seeing live during the event. Because of timezone differences, people were able to see that not all of us were able to experience the Supermoon rise at the same time, plus it opened up a chance to discuss about different cultures & locations as well.
Use visual apps that enrich your live content There are so many science apps available these days! If you connect your device to your web conference, there is no reason why you can’t share some of this content if it is already available for free. You can share virtual skies, explore the human body, play science games and more! As long as your app fits well within your conference, we say go for it!
These were just some brief ways that you can use screen sharing to enhance remote learning. Some extra tips to consider.
Only have the tabs open on your browser that you are happy to share! You may not wan to share everything that is on your desktop
To control what you share even further, only choose the application that you want to share instead of the whole screen.
Turn off desktop notifications & reminders that you might normally receive during the day
Be aware of internet bandwidth. If you are sharing a rich HD moving image, this may not show up as well for your remote audience if their internet is not high speed.
If you are sharing apps, have them preloaded and ready to go on the screen that you need.
If you use screen mirroring to your device, there is a lag in connecting to the conference that you will need to adjust for.
Practice and test! Make sure you know how connect to your extra content easily.
So, are you ready to give it a go? When it s comes down to it, it just a matter of thinking carefully about how the extra content impacts upon your overall presentation.With these tips and mind and little creativity, your remote audiences will love your line online programs!
The eSafety Commisoner has a lot of tips to help you and your kids stay safe online. This is especially important relevant during the COVID-19 pandemic with more of us online. Getting online to stay connected with family, friends and works has never been more important, now that so many of us remain isolated from our support networks.
The internet is a great way to socialise, learn, work, play and be entertained. There are also risks, so do your research to find out how you can keep you and your family safe.
creating fake accounts to trick someone or humiliate them
Did you know:
1 in 5 Australian young people reported being socially excluded, threatened or abused online.
55% sought help from their parents, 28% from their friends; 38% blocked the offending social media account; 12% reported it to the website or platform.
1 in 5 Australian young people (15% of kids, 24% of teens) admitted behaving in a negative way to a peer online — such as calling them names, deliberately excluding them, or spreading lies or rumours.
Of these, more than 90% had had a negative online experience themselves.
There are a lot of resources on the eSafety COVID-19 website for parents, educators and seniors including:
Fizzics Education, Sydney Science Education and ANSTO are bringing you some great programs for World Environment Day 2020. World Environment Day is celebrated every 5th of June and the theme for 2020 is Celebrating Biodiversity.
5 June 2020
Fizzics Education: Renewable Energy
We will investigate various renewable energy sources and compare them against non-renewable energy sources. A focus will be placed upon how a generator actually works and how this is applied in coal power stations, wind farms, hydroelectric dams, tidal generators, etc. We’ll also discuss why switching to renewable energy sources will help reduce carbon emissions, with reference being made to the scientific basis of climate change.
No matter where you live across Australia there are plants and animals that live nearby. From our beaches to the mountains, the deserts to the rainforests and even in your backyard there is Biodiversity all around us. Join me to learn about some of these amazing habitats and the animals that live there.
Learn about some incredible animals, their adaptions to the habitat they live.
ANSTO: Saving Shorebirds and their Important Habitats
Shorebirds are rapidly declining in numbers and several species are now threatened with extinction. In Australia and elsewhere their shoreline habitats are being permanently affected by human activity or are disappearing altogether.
Join ANSTO on World Environment Day to explore the amazing journey of migratory shorebirds!
Virtual Excursions and online learning is now the new normal. Join us to find out just what is available for schools, libraries, community groups and more. There are a lot of incredible live interactive classes that are educational, linked with curriculum and engaging.
Hosted by Ben Newsome from Fizzics Education
Keep and eye out for upcoming events for World Environment Day 5 June and SciFest for during August
The push to online learning has seen the meteoric rise of Zoom for video conferencing. As of 2 April 2020 Zoom’s daily users has ballooned to more than 200 million from a previous maximum of 10 million. This surged in popularity has highlighted some serious child protection issues that you need to consider.
You might have already heard of ‘Zoom Bombing‘ this is where uninvited participants join your session and share inappropriate content through video or audio. This is a real issue especially if you are running a session with students. It is important that you know how to keep your sessions secure and your students safe. Check out these 10 suggestions to secure Zoom.
The Zoom feature I like best is the Waiting Room. I can cross check the the names on the screen with my list to ensure I only let kids that have booked into the session. I also send an email before each session for parents with the room settings and expectations. I explain the expectations to the kids before we start, often it is about reminding the kids that I can see them too.
Plan ahead and set up your Zoom sessions with Child Protection and Privacy in mind. Keep everyone safe by making your Zoom rooms secure.
It’s Monday morning after Daylight savings has finished for 2020 and it’s time to talk about time. I thought daylight savings was finishing over Easter so last week I emailed reminders for upcoming bookings that it was Australian Eastern Daylight Time, AEDT. Today I had to email out apologies and statement saying that it is actually Australian Eastern Standard Time, AEST.
It is easy to make these mistakes when you are taking bookings Australia wide. But what are the implications when you are a global provider? Ben Newsome from Fizzics Education shares some of the challenges and shows that Time really does matter.
When converting timezones, cultural differences matter.
Not all countries write dates the same way as you do.
It’s natural to think that everyone thinks the same as you, but at a global level, this is never the case. For example, have look at the following timezone conversion:
Sydney, Australia Mon, 6 Apr 2020 at 9:00 am AEST New York, USA Sun, 5 Apr 2020 at 7:00 pm EDT
Fairly straight forward right? But there is a hidden catch that gets people all the time… Australians writes DD/MM/YY and Americans write MM/DD/YY. So, what does that mean if you’re sorting out an international meeting or class between Australia and USA? If you simply write the dates in simple notation, you’re going to cause a major stuff up:
Sydney, Australia Mon, 6 Apr 2020 at 9:00 am AEST New York, USA Sun, 5 Apr 2020 at 7:00 pm EDT
can be written correctly (to an Australian) as:
Sydney, Australia 6/4/20 at 9:00 am AEST New York, USA Sun, 5/4/20 at 7:00 pm EDT
See the problem? You’re saying to your American colleague that your meeting time it’ll be on the 4th of June and their meeting time is on the 4th of May!
It gets worse… most people would pick that up if you copied and pasted the above into an email, however if you add a booking calendar into the equation it gets tricky… not all booking calendars allow for international timezones! This means that you could potentially pop that meeting into your calendar for the 6th of April and then generate a meeting invite in the numerical notation for 6/4/20 to your American counterpart… which then reads like it is the 4th of June!
I’ve experienced the above first-hand years ago and it’s was confusing for everyone until we worked out what was going on. It’s not a matter of carelessness, its a matter of not realising what is being generated by your booking software. Now there is another issue to consider with that booking, have a look again:
Sydney, Australia Mon, 6 Apr 2020 at 9:00 am AEST New York, USA Sun, 5 Apr 2020 at 7:00 pm EDT
If I forget that its Sunday night for my American friends, the chances of people being able to make the class on Monday morning at 9:00am Sydney time are next to nil!
The thing is, I often get enquiries to run programs from overseas as below:
New York, USA Fri, 17 Apr 2020 at 11:30 am EDT Sydney, Australia Sat, 18 Apr 2020 at 1:30 am AEST
This has usually been because the person hasn’t realised that we’re in Australia, but this is not always the case. Now don’t get me wrong, I’ve run many, many, many overnight programs to USA schools (and will continue to do so) … seriously, I have a swag aka bedroll above my video conference room! However, if you aren’t expecting someone on the other side of the world to run a session at 1:30am on Saturday morning, please allow for their timezone too.
It gets more complicated when you’re running a global online science class. Have a look at the timezone conversion for Monday next week:
Sydney, Australia Mon, 6 Apr 2020 at 9:00 am AEST New York, USA Sun, 5 Apr 2020 at 7:00 pm EDT London, United Kingdom Mon, 6 Apr 2020 at 12:00 midn BST
No matter how you try to change the booking time, someone in the world has to to do a late-night connection with you.
What is the solution?
Think globally. Use timezone conversion tools and copy and paste exactly their output to everyone in one go and get an agreement before you put something into your booking calendar. So with this in mind, I thought I’d quickly share the two main tools I use.
Time and Date Converter. My absolute favourite. User-friendly and produces an output that everyone can understand
Doodle Polls These polls are great as they allow you to quickly sort out a shared time that everyone can agree upon.
Thanks Ben for sharing your experience it is a great reminder that Time Matters. Everyone be prepared to deliver a late night or early morning session if a mistake is made. And remember always double check your listings especially if you are using overseas third party bookings systems.
There has been a big push in recent week for educators to get ready to deliver online learning at home. Classroom teachers preparing to work from home, excursion providers wanting to continue to support their school base and incursion providers that can no longer visit on site. All these groups are trying to find a space, rearranging furniture and wondering how they will make this work. Like me often with their own kids at home as well.
Ben Newsome from Fizzics Education is often asked how to avoid mistakes in setting up distance learning spaces. Ben has extensive experience delivering virtual excursion and is well placed to help us prepare for online learning. Every learning space is different especially when we are all looking at delivering programs from home.
No matter what you do it is better than doing nothing! Unfortunately, there are lots of distance educators that I know of that could help kids with live online classes, but due to the rush to self-isolate, not all of them were not able to get their equipment out of their distance learning studios in time.
Assuming that you’ve been given the green light to put together a distance learning space at your home, starting with what not to do is a great way to frame your thinking around what to purchase and what to avoid.
Let’s look at these 7 virtual learning problems
Number 1: Lighting is bad and backlit
Lighting means the kids can see what you’re showing them! It’s so easy to overlook, yet having multiple light sources both in front and behind you gives students a solid chance to catch the little details. Some tips for lighting:- Reduce shadows where you can by pointing multiple lights around you or the thing that you’re showing.– Avoid having a window behind you or otherwise, you’ll look like a silhouette– Lighting in the background matters too– Soft, cool hues in your lighting tend to show up most scenes better– Don’t blast the subject matter with strong light… it’ll look like a white blur to the remote audienceDepending on your budget and space in your house, you can make an awesome space with not much effort.
Number 2: Not filling the screen with content that matters
This is an odd one to write but correct framing of the subject matter is often missed. If you are showing something on a desk, for example a beaker, the only thing that the remote audience should see is… a beaker! All the other surrounding things are just a distraction and no-one wants to see your background when they are trying to see the subject matter that you’re talking about.
Number 3: Microphone inadequate and not muting when required
Microphones are finicky things. It seems like you need to keep buying more and more expensive microphones just to keep up with the Joneses. The good news, you don’t really need to spend too much. Given that this is about planning for your home studio, you just need a good quality USB camera with a built-in decent microphone. Of course, you could improve that setup by adding a headset microphone so that the volume is constant no matter which way your head turns too. Be aware that sound bounces in your house, soft furnishing reduces the echo that can come back at the microphone. I snuck in an extra ‘sin’ to address here… microphone etiquette.
Muting your microphone is essential to have a decent conversation with more than 1 person. Imagine sitting on a bus with 30 students and they’re all talking at you; no-one enjoys that! Teach students to mute unless directly asking or answering a question. It’s also great practice to learn to wait our turn!
Number 4: Firewalls blocking everything
The technology coordinators and network administrators won’t like me saying this, but firewalls really make good times go bad for video conferencing. Of course, a computer network needs to be protected and this is especially the case when dealing with a district or even State-wide rollout of devices. Naturally, you’d be protective. However, I’ve encountered times when I’ve tried to connect to a school but the firewall won’t let me through and no-one will let my IP address get through despite a class waiting for their virtual lesson the next day. I’ve also encountered times when a school really wants to connect with me, however the district has determined that only a particular product can be used and will not let anything else in… despite that product being inadequate for the lesson needed and that product filled with security flaws in the first place.What has the above go to do with your home distance learning room? Your home is going to have a different IP address outside of your organisation and as such, you’ll need to do some testing with someone who handles IT. They’ll need to let you into the network or all your work will be for naught whilst they sort out their security problems.
Number 5: Being a talking head. Make it interesting
Blah, blah, blah… don’t you just love listening to that sort of presentation? Monotone, methodical and frankly boring cadence will send your audience to sleep. No-one likes this! Don’t be that person. Make your presentation fresh and interesting with lots of things to show and lots of things for your audience to do. They’ll thank you for it.
Number 6: Going too big for your capabilities of handling the audience
We can all get excited about the possibilities of reaching people all over the world. I also personally know of some ways that you can reach a lot of people and still preserve interactivity. But my question to you is… are you ready for that yet? Even if you know the software tools backwards, do you have extra people available to help you? What is your backup plan? What about your administration team? Unless you’ve thought out how to handle large audiences, well, keep your classes small for your own sake and that of the distant learners.
Number 7: Child protection missing, disjointed or misleading
This is the worrying one. During the COVID-19 outbreak, I’ve seen everything in the media from Zoombombing to partial exposures to toilet gaffs and more. This is just a natural consequence of people trying to move too fast with a technology they have not yet mastered, combined with the darker elements on the internet taking advantage of people’s naivety. It is essential that you understand all of the child protection and privacy protections that your software gives you. If it allows your audience to show their face, hear their voice, type something in… then you are responsible for making sure that nothing gets shared that is inappropriate, illegal or immoral.
The only way out of this is to lock down your meeting rooms! Control who gets to be seen, heard or typed right from the very start and make sure that the virtual meeting room is password protected. It is critical that you get child protection right. This goes hand-in-hand with knowing your capabilities with the software and how to look after kids from the moment you engage with them. If you don’t know what to do about child protection during online virtual classes, the time to ask is way before you ever go live.
It is not just a case of blaming the software, the user must take responsibility too.
Given all the things raised in this article, you might be wondering where to next? We have been running technology accelerators for years now and have created a series of modules that you might find useful for setting up a distance learning room. What defines these modules is less theory and more practical… i.e what do you actually need to know? If you’d like to know more, just drop us a line and we can have a chat about what might be appropriate for your needs.
Running distance learning can be highly rewarding, just make sure you’ve got the right tech & know how in the first place.
I would like to add a few comments from my experience, especially over recent weeks delivering Virtual Excursions from home. Always be prepared for the unexpected!
I left the door open a crack and my dog came into a session mid way, not a disaster but very distracting as his tail was in front of the camera. I prepare my kids when I am about to go online, I let them know how long I will be. I also give them an activity and a snack to keep them busy.
Have a technology back up. Our Wi-Fi went down mid session and I had to scramble to switch cables around to reconnect. I was lucky that I has an easy solution and was offline for less than 5 mins.
There have been some great collections of digital programs being complied from around the world. I wanted to create a list of Australian education providers and websites that have great resources. There are some great options to help your students and kids in class or at home.
ABC Education
ABC Education brings you thousands of free, curriculum-linked resources for Primary and Secondary students and teachers.
ABC TV Education broadcasts two hours of dedicated education programming for school aged viewers nationwide each weekday from 10am – 3pm on ABC ME.
Live Streams
Sea EagleCAM is a live remote feed operating out of the BirdLife Discovery Centre in the Armory at Sydney Olympic Park close to the Parramatta River.
Zoos Victoria is bringing the zoo to you with learning activities, resources, webinars and live stream animals to help with real-world learning, by distance. Check out the Zoo Education Online resources. Melbourne Zoo and Werribee Open Range Zoo have set up a live streams of enclosures online.
Taronga Zoo Sydney has set up 24/7 live-streaming cameras at so you can enjoy your favourite animals at any time of day.
Get up close with our animals from the comfort of your own home and discover more about WILD LIFE Sydney Zoo by watching our live streams below.
ReefCam is Australia’s first ever rocky-reef, live-feed, combined under and above water webcams. Discover species found in Port Phillip Bay including the underwater flora and fauna.
Fizzic Education has 150 Science Experiments online for FREE. Science experiments and project ideas using simple, low cost materials that teach science easily.
Cool Australia has FREE activities and resources that make teaching and understanding real world scenarios as easy as possible.
Australian Music Examinations Board Theory of Music online courses now FREE
TedED is producing high-quality, interactive, video-based lessons to help teaching and learning from home.
Virtual Field Trips
Here are 30+ great Virtual Field Trips for early learners to explore from your home on your couch. From zoos and landmarks to famous museums, you can explore the world with your child with over a month of virtual field trips
Interactive online programs
Interactive activities direct to your home through as Virtual Excursion. Fizzics Education, Sydney Science Education, REDed Dance and Chess Mates are all offering online school holiday programs.
