Wow!! Who would have thought that at the beginning of 2020, the year would take such a strange turn of events worldwide with quarantines; lockdowns; social distancing in addition to working from home because of the Covid-19 pandemic. Many school teachers & their students are also working together online. The most popular teleconferencing platform is Zoom at the moment. As places & situations have changed to better facilitate ongoing classes for students, we don’t want to forget the basics of good social skills. And our tech savvy kids don’t want to have any embarrassing moments from this lock down to follow them for the rest of their lives.
A Florida mom, DeAnn Arnold, realized this possible scenario could occur to her middle schooler & freshman in high school. Do you remember the woman who got up in the middle of her Zoom conference to go to the bathroom? DeAnn came up with a brilliant list of Zoom etiquette tips which I would love to share. Teachers are working hard under challenging circumstances so any way that our children can rise to the occasion and make class instruction easier, the better.
- Don’t go to the bathroom while on zoom.
- Don’t go in each other’s rooms during zoom.
- Don’t invite expelled kids or any other kid not in your class to the meeting.
- Wear school clothes during school hours all the time for now.
- Look at your surroundings (make your bed, avoid Sports Illustrated posters).
- Don’t pick your nose, pop zits, or any other grooming.
- Don’t text or play on cell phone during zooms. This includes videoing the zoom as it goes on.
- Don’t share any zoom mishaps of your peers on social media later.
- Always mute unless it’s your turn to talk.
- Use a pre-made background from Zoom (not a picture from your camera roll).
- Add scheduled zooms to the family calendar so parents can avoid you during these times. This helps to keep a schedule for chores; free time, meals, etc.
- Turn off music or TV in background.
- Don’t fidget.
- Don’t stare at yourself in the camera. Watch the teacher or whoever is talking.
- Watch your volume. You won’t have to yell to be heard, but you also have to make sure to speak up when its your turn to talk.
- Don’t spam/make too many posts in the chat box.
- Don’t bicker with your sibling(s) while on Zoom.
What would you add?? Please share your suggestions in the comment section below.
These are difficult times at the moment. I want to express my deepest admiration and gratitude to those in the education field; healthcare; food industry; supply chain who are working tirelessly to keep us healthy and happy. I sincerely hope this will be short lived so we can get on with living our lives again and fuelling the economy. In the meantime, while your children are on Zoom, this becomes a great teaching moment about how posts can go viral and that the internet is extremely unforgiving. Every post is PUBLIC!!
Tags: covid-19, home learning, Zoom
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