Bandwidth friendly teaching and learning

[annajiat]

Workshops with some stakeholder facing bandwidth issues, may wish to try the followings for low bandwidth teaching and learning for The Carpentries.

Potentially bandwidth friendly configuration/practices:

• not recording or stopping zoom recording, if any and encouraging learners to follow the lessons
• disabling profile pictures
• keeping the video off while not speaking
• unmuting only when speaking
• summarizing things that we are saying to the chat during the session to manage intermittent audio problems for some participants, to the collaborative document e.g., Etherpad and emailing at the end of each day. Several workshop organizers used to regularly both notes and source files
• offering additional office timings if the situation permits at the end of each day or during short/lunch breaks
• reducing our presenter's resolution and window size while presenting
• sharing screen or staying in the collaborative workspace, only when necessary.
• closing other browser tabs
• closing other background apps, cloud drive syncing apps, specially the ones visible near the clock
• using incognito or private-browsing mode to temporarily avoid potentially interfering browser extensions or temporarily disabling all browser extensions, specially adblockers
• restarting computer / device
• restarting browser
• reloading the browser page
• temporarily turning OFF browser's "sync" option for settings
• if using Google meet, setting send and receive resolution to 360p and turning on Closed Captioning (CC)
• if using Zoom, disabling HD and other tips and turning turning on free zoom live captioning
• if on Windows, temporarily, turning ON "metered connection", turning OFF "background apps" and "sync your settings"
• switching to "view" mode of CodiMD while not editing
• keeping collaborative document closed while not needed e.g., etherpad, CodiMD, Google document, etc.
• making data files available from additional cloud storage locations
• sometimes rejoining the meeting helps with missing shared window/audio problems.

Alternative Tools: Different tools may be helpful to different group of learners.

• Google Meet
• YouTube live streaming
• Bigbluebutton
• Zoom
• Mumble
• Jitsi Meet
• shellshare

References:

• https://github.com/carpentries/community-facilitators-program/issues/26
• https://github.com/carpentries/trainers/blob/main/minutes/Apr-Jun_2020_Notes.md
• https://carpentries.org/blog/2021/02/prioritising-accessibility-virtual-events/
• https://carpentries.org/blog/2020/03/tips-for-teaching-online/
• https://carpentries.org/blog/2020/04/ucl-first-online-git-workshop/
• http://annajiat.blogspot.com/2021/05/low-bandwidth-teaching-and-learning.html

[Jaredabera]

Oh this is great man, thank you!

[annajiat]

@Jaredabera , glad that you found it to be informative. In case the first one "not recording or stopping zoom recording" seem counter-intuitive, some hosts shared that having it OFF may help in smoother zoom experience in terms of bandwidth.