Aaron Johnson - Online Teaching with Zoom: A Guide for Teaching and Learning with Videoconference Platforms (Excellent Online Teaching Book 2)

My grandfather was part of the Greatest Generation, who weathered the Great Depression and enlisted to fight in World War 2. He once told me that learning a particular technology changed the course of his life. As a teenager, he decided to sit down at a typewriter. Investing hours in developing the skill of typing, he became quite fast at the keyboard. When the Coast Guard learned of this ability, they sent him alone by train, then by boat, to a remote and secret radar station in Newfoundland, Canada, where he coded and decoded messages about the locations of enemy ships and submarines in the Atlantic.

After the war, his skills led him to study journalism, get his degree, then begin work at a newspaper. He watched homes fitted for indoor plumbing, and radio move to television. He went from using the telegraph in the service to using the telephone to conduct business. In his decades as a reporter, then editor, my grandfather transitioned from a manual typewriter to a series of electric versions, then to an early computer, and later to a personal computer. In his nineties, he purchased and began using an iPad.

I admire his approach to technology because he considered each new invention as a tool. From working on farms and in the family iron foundry, he knew that tools required time and focused attention. Tools entailed practice. He brought that mindset to the typewriter and to the digital tools he would later adopt.

Videoconferencing software, like Zoom, is a tool. I've designed this book to help you acquire and practice the skills to use this tool for the specific purpose of education.

Transitioning from an on-campus classroom to an on-Zoom classroom can generate some serious anxiety. We don't want to screw it up or look incompetent. We want to function with confidence and for our students to get the best possible experience. As you read this book, I hope that it helps you to gain competency and confidence as a videoconferencing educator. If youve been teaching with videoconference software for a while, this guide will help you sharpen your skills.

As futurists and philosophers like Kevin Kelley and Marshal McLuhan remind us, every technology comes with latent strengths and weaknesses. And like every tool, Zoom has certain tendencies. The essential idea of this book is that Zoom was built for conversations. It was designed for dialogue and discourse. This essential idea has two major implications.

First, we must cultivate an active learning environment. To use videoconferencing for 100% lecture is like using a butter knife to tighten a screw. It kind of works, but we are forcing the tool and go against the grain of its design. Based on this essential idea, OnlineTeaching with Zoom will help you create and support an active learning remote classroom. The good news is that this does not require you to reinvent your lessons. Instead, well look at ways to adapt your material and lead your learners in this unique space.

Second, we must learn how to set up and facilitate Zoom Breakout groups. Breakout groups are the most important and powerful educational tool in our Zoom toolbox. They allow us to split our larger classroom into smaller learning teams. However, learning groups dont work out-of-the-box. Teaching and learning in breakout groups requires understanding group dynamics, some preparation, and skill in facilitating learning teams. Part 4: Working with Breakout Groups is a guide to building spaces where learners can thrive in collaborative and discussion-driven learning experiences.