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Max number visible for video chat in an interactive workshop?

  • 10 July 2020
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I am planning to run a collaborative workshop next week  - there are probably going to be 12-13 participants. I am a little concerned about the visibility of all participants on screen (joining by video chat). I have never tried anything with so many. I have seen elsewhere that that participants will be stacked up on top of each other with a slider iof more than 3 or 4? And everybody will have to manually move up and down to see who is talking? What’s the best practice for handling this kind of situation? First time I have done this on Miro, I am quite anxious. 

I also have seen that some people run Zoom/Teams alongside instead? But my concern there would be that the whiteboard screen would end up being pretty small on Miro if half the screen is taken up with Zoom?

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Best answer by Jonathan White 10 July 2020, 19:57

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Hi @Jo Shaw 

 

First off, don’t feel too anxious about this, everyone does this for the first time at some point and I think more often than not it goes better than expected! One strategy I think works really well is to let your audience know that you are trying something for the first time. This not only takes some pressure off, but can help to humanize you and people will be more accepting of hiccups if they happen. You got this!

In my experience, I have only ever been able to see two video screens using the Miro video chat. And you are correct, people would have to scroll through to see various speakers. Even if it could show more, it would cover the workspace. Personally, I use 2 monitors and have a Zoom/GoTo/Teams meeting running while using Miro. I can share my screen if I need to show what I am doing, and I can also detach the cameras and keep those on one of my monitors. If you are using only one monitor, using a webchat technology makes it easy to flip between all video panels and your Miro workspace.

Typically, I rely heavily on video at the start and end of my workshops. The middle is filled with Miro collaboration!

Not sure if this helps, but you will do great and if you use this as a learning opportunity, you will be able to tweak your approach for future sessions based on what has worked and not worked for you.

Good luck!
 

Jon

 

 

 

Thank you, Jon, yes, I think we will go with a Zoom alongside, as there will be quite a lot of people at this. And that seems to be quite a widespread approach. Yes also to using two screens.

Bit anxious because some of the participants on the workshop are actually more proficient at Miro than I - which is good because they’ll know what to do, but the group will be looking to me to be on top of it (there will be some total newbies too)! I have done literally hundreds of face to face workshops, but this is all pretty new to me.

Thanks for being encouraging :-) 

Jo

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