Livestream practice
This page contains various exercises to be done during the practice session. These are all “roleplay” of how you’ll actually act in a livestreamed course.
Audio exercises.
Do the bottom two exercises from Sound. Audio quality and balance is an important prerequisite for any teaching.
Behind the livestream
We’ll see demos of what the streaming part is like.
Director view
This is currently done case-by-case/live demo during the exercises below.
Announciator panel
We have a web-based panel that can relay non-verbal messages (“caution”, “warning”, “faster”, etc.) between instructors without having to speak up. This exists as a web panel that has various lights light up and make sounds when clicked.
Test the announciator panel
Purpose: Understand how non-verbal instructor feedback works.
Open the announciator panel (the broadcaster will provide a link)
Make it work (disable SSL, click the button to enable audio). Confirm that it’s lighting up.
understand:
The indicator buttons and what they mean.
What effects these buttons have and when to use them.
All: test turning the various lights on and off.
Roleplay:
Person A explains something.
Person B, partway through it, lights up the “time” light.
Person A notices
Going live
Getting the instructors ready to “go live” isn’t hard but someone has to “herd the cats” and make it happen. Instructors need to know how this process goes.
Test the “going live” process
Director: Announce it’s almost time
Director: asks everyone else in the call to turn off their videos.
Decide who is sharing screen
Decide who is speaking first when you go live and what the first words will be. (These first words are most important and you should think of what you’ll say.)
Director: In the director’s panel, configure the “back to” setting, broadcaster audio, and jingle
Director: countdowns “Starting in 3 2 1”, (click the button), (everyone takes a breath for zero), then go.
Speaker begins talking
(Remember that each time you go back live is a good time to review the notes + answer questions)
Introduce exercises
It’s not that hard to teach, but it requires some practice to say the first words of a new lesson smoothly.
Exercise
Purpose: Move to exercises in a controlled manner.
Say what exercises are
What your goal is
How far you should get
Common things that might go wrong
Add the exercise info + above questions to the notes
Answer any questions from the notes (this )
Verify that it is in the notes
Leave to the break.
Going to a break
Go to a break
Look at the notes, anything to be answered? (At least let people know it’s in use)
Say when we come back and what to expect then.
Say “bye”.
Director pushes the “BEAK” button.
Update the notes:
Break info block
When back
Exercise link (if any)
What the expectations are
Notes fixup
Purpose: learn the common things that can go wrong in the notes and fix them.
Practice fixing up a notes document
spacing is off (missing blank lines between questions, missing blank lines in bullet points)
questions not answered
Section headings at inconsistent levels
Exercises not described once they start
Lesson/episode titles are not there
People asking/answering questions above the exercise definition
No template lines at the bottom.
Roleplay: one person teaches, several people write badly in Notes, trainees have to fix up in real time
Add common notes blocks
In the notes, everyone add examples of the below, and we’ll compare the different formats people create (and maybe get some new ideas):
Exercise announcement
Break announcement
Poll of some sort
Evaluate not just on how good it looks, but also how long it takes to make, risks of things going wrong, brevity of markdown+HTML versions, etc.
Lesson preparation
Level zero prepration to teach a lesson
Explain the point of a lesson in a few sentences (as if you are giving an introduction to learners)
Explain what you will not cover
Lesson revision
Revise this lesson to make it more usable for someone who doesn’t know the command line (or is in some other way different from you).