With the changing pace of time and current scenarios of lockdowns, everyone has no choice but to adapt and overcome this scenario. Dancing community is no different, all the classes and dancers are having a difficult time to continue with there profession and teach others to join this grooving profession. In this situation zoom has emerged as the lord and saviour for everyone, video conferencing with zoom has never been easier.
Conducting a virtual class is no kids work, you have to be very careful with everything you do and take care of every detail that you put on the live video. Almost everyone who wants to conduct online classes because of this pandemic or due to any other reason are total amateurs with the experience of teaching online. This article will help you with tech tips for conducting dance class via zoom.
Here are the tips for you to teach dance via zoom
1. Use External Webcam for Superior Quality of Streaming
Modern laptops have an inbuilt webcam in them but with minimum specifications, but old laptops and PC’s have no internal webcams that can help you with the video part of the conference. Even if you have a webcam built within your device it is advisable that you use an external webcam so that you get superior quality of video streaming.
Clear audio and video quality for teaching dance via zoom are the most basic things for streaming. It doesn’t matter if you’re taking online paid classes or free online dance classes free, you need quality streaming on zoom. You should even consider using an external mic for more clear and crisp audio for your students to listen to.
2. Mute Everybody in the Chat Room
Mute feature of zoom very essential to use for any dance instructor to avoid chaos and noise within the class when you’re teaching. While teaching dance, you won’t need the sound of anyone but you. By not muting everyone but you, various sounds in the streaming will start to mix as everyone would hear sounds of everyone and the sound may start echoing.
By keeping everyone on mute you’d ensure that no nuisance is created in your dance class and all the agenda is completed in your class. You’d think that what about if anyone has a question regarding something, there is two emoji reaction in the app which they can use to talk and also you can have a session for questions at the end to solve everyone’s issue, hence this will be a very useful tip.
3. Use the Spotlight Feature
Unless you are co-teaching the class with someone, the important thing to do as soon as there are more than 3 people in the chat is that you should on the spotlight mode in the zoom app, this will ensure that no matter who is speaking or not, your video will be the highlight and will appear in large format on everyone’s screen, though the students can change the setting such as gallery view if they wish, but the default setting will be your video in the spotlight.
Make sure that you tell the students to use a laptop or big screen devices so that they don’t strain there eyes and can properly learn how to dance without straining their eyes. Paid or free online dance classes this feature is needed by all.
4. Check if the Mic and Webcam are Working
The output of your camera and the microphone should be pre-tested before you start the meeting. Zoom itself gives you the option to check out whether your mic and webcam are wording properly or not. By checking it beforehand you would be able to know if there is any issue and solve it asap. So don’t forget to check the mic and the webcam along with your wifi(internet connection) because if it is weak you would know if you need to postpone the lecture or use a mobile hotspot.
One more thing that is advisable to you is that you should keep backup devices in case your main device malfunctions due to any reason because let’s be honest no technology is foolproof, so it would be smart to keep devices or instruments handy.
5. Avoid using any virtual background
Virtual background on zoom is a feature that will convert your background with preset image/video or image/video of your choice, but it may look kiddish, and also the virtual background without a green screen is not fully optimized to keep the subject and the background clear without overlapping. So you should not use the virtual background unless the original background at the place where you’re going to dance is not appropriate due to any reason, in such case appropriate image or video should be set as the virtual background.
These tech tips for teaching dance class on zoom will make sure that you have very successful streaming and all your students or the dancers are completely satisfied with minimal issues encountered.
