Step-By-Step Instructions for Using this Popular Education Platform to Deliver a Live Class Session

What can be termed as a “live class”? For instance, a session conducted on Skype by an instructor can surely be termed as “live class” but it barely addresses all the facilities available to the instructor in a traditional classroom.

Conferencing tools have become ubiquitous in the last decade. However, most of them have been developed specifically for online meetings or 1-to-1 live chat. Virtual Classroom is a specialized conferencing solution with many important features created specifically to aid instructors, teachers and trainers to conduct classes online with the same experience of a traditional classroom, in some ways, better than the traditional setup. Classes conducted on a virtual classroom can be truly termed as a “live class” because it mimics the environment of the traditional classroom with whiteboard, one-to-many audio-video setup, chat, presentation-based discussion, multimedia sharing, enrolment features and so on.

WizIQ is one of the largest cloud-based virtual classroom platforms with ease-of-use, simplicity, mobility and affordability at the core of the solution. In the following sections, we will learn how to conduct a live class on WizIQ with four easy steps:

1. Create the live class in WizIQ
2. Execute the pre-class housekeeping tasks
3. Conduct the live class
4. Post-class activities

Create a Live Class in WizIQ

On purchasing a WizIQ account, the purchaser gets access to an academy URL which would be in www.<academyname>.com format. With each account, administrator and instructor accounts are also created.

To create a WizIQ Virtual Classroom, one needs to login as an Instructor from the academy homepage. The post-login page has several options such as library, courses, tests and live classes. Instructor needs to click on the “live class” option and then, click on the “New Live Class” option.

A new page opens, where all the settings related to the live class can be defined. The settings include:

1. Title: The name of the class; this shows up in the live class page on top, once the page is created. Some examples: Computer Programming 101, Introduction to the Laws of Motion, Email Communication Best Practices, etc.
2. Subtitle: Subtitle takes the reader to the next level of detail, briefly explaining what is the purpose of the live class. For example, if the live class is on “Email Communication Best Practices”, the subtitle would suggest the following:

“Learn how to make email communication effective and result-oriented in corporate environment”

3. Date and time: Here, the instructor has to define the date and time of the live class. For example, if the class is being conducted on February 7, 2018, at 7 PM from the United Kingdom, this information must be set in the date and time with the time zone selected as GMT or UTC.
4. About the class: Everything important about the class which will aid the participant in understanding what to expect from the class should be mentioned in this section. Typically, instructors can mention key takeaways, benefits, agenda and overview of the session in this section.
5. Who can attend: In WizIQ, a participant can join a live class in 3 ways:
   1. By submitting the email addresses of attendees after the class is created, or
   2. By allowing access to students who sign up in the academy, or
   3. By keeping the session open for anyone to join anonymously

If the instructor wishes to enroll the attendees by himself or herself (using their email IDs), he or she must select the option “only to the users you enroll”. If the instructor wishes to keep the enrolment open to everyone, the option “To all visitors and registered users of the academy” should be selected.

On selecting “To all visitors and registered users of the academy” two more options open up:

1. Class Pricing: WizIQ Virtual Classroom is ecommerce enabled. A virtual classroom can be made a paid class by selecting the “paid class” option and providing the fee amount to join the class (in USD). All attendees/students will have to pay the amount to get access to the live class.
2. Allow attendees to enter class without sign-up: Selecting this option as ‘Yes’ will allow attendees to enter anonymously while selecting this option as ‘no’ will make attendee signup (with their email ID) to the academy mandatory for joining the class.
3. Record the class: To enable class recording, instructor needs to select ‘Yes’, otherwise the class recording will be disabled.
4. Class logo/Pic: A unique image relevant to the topic of the class can be uploaded while setting up the class. This image will be displayed in the class page once it is set up and live.
5. Class Duration: This field may be used to specify the duration for which the class will run.
6. Max Attendees: This field may be used to specify the attendee limit in the class. Beyond the limit, additional attendees trying to join the class will be shown a “Room is full” message.
7. Language of Instruction: This field may be used to specify the language of instruction used by the instructor during the live class.

Once done, the instructor can click on the ‘Schedule and Continue” button at the end of the page to create a new class.

Execute the Pre-class Housekeeping Tasks

The above image is that of a typical class page as displayed to the instructor. Instructor may need to execute a few pre-class housekeeping tasks that include the following:

1. Enrolling the attendees/students manually
2. Editing class information

The instructor can add attendees to the class if he or she has access to attendee names and email IDs. To add attendees manually, instructor needs to go to the “People” tab as shown in the screenshot to find the attendee enrollment option.

To edit the class information, the instructor needs to click on “Edit” in the live class page to edit the live class details.

Conduct the Live Class

To start the live class, the instructor needs to login a few minutes before the start time of the live class to ensure features such as audio-video, recorder are working perfectly and the presentation and video files are uploaded in the content library for ease of access.

On the live class page, the launch button launches the live class. Once the live class is launched, the following screen will open in front of the instructor:

The screen shows instructor’s live feed, which is also visible to all the attendees of the class. Instructor has the option to send message to all the attendees in the live class using the “Live chat” option or to a specific attendee using the “Private chat” option. Other main options available for the instructor to use are recorder (audio/video controls), class timer, instructor profile, attendee list and sign-out. Screen sharing allows instructor to share the computer screen on which instructor is conducting the class to show some specific files. Polls can be used to create in-class polls on the topics explained by the instructor. Layout option provides the instructor with control to change the layout of the screen, for example, one of the layout options allows the instructor video to go full-screen minimizing the whiteboard and other menus.

In the workspace area, the instructor has the option to write, draw on the whiteboard and display several digital content types to make the class more engaging. Among the digital content types, the instructor has the option to run YouTube videos, display PowerPoint presentations, Word and Excel files, and play multimedia content directly from the content library.

In a typical scenario, an instructor can start with a PowerPoint presentation to explain a few concepts, use the whiteboard to draw certain scenarios, then load a video from YouTube to show the application of the concept in a video, and upload a word file with the assignment for the next class. When the instructor wants full focus on what he/she is speaking, he/she can change the layout to full-screen video mode to reduce distraction.

Once the class is complete, the instructor has the option to save the whiteboard activity in a PDF and end the session. To end the session, Instructor needs to click on the timer to find the option “End the Session”.

Post-class Activities

After the class is complete, instructors get the option to download or view the class recording in the same class page. The recording of the class can be shared with the students as well.

With easy administration, seamless collaboration, high-definition output and enhanced accessibility, WizIQ Virtual Classroom helps you start delivering online learning within minutes!