We were planning to run a weekly in-person watch party and study group in Bengaluru, but due to Covid-19, we have now decided to do it online. I’m sharing our approach below, hoping others may find it useful.
Here’s what we’re doing:
We’re announcing a recurring event on our Meetup & Slack groups, for each week’s virtual study group, and collecting signups (limiting it to ~100 people).
Every week, we plan to re-stream the lecture video over Zoom to the virtual study group (without revealing or sharing the video link)
We will collect the questions from the group, and post them to the official forum thread here after the lecture ends.
We will have another Zoom call over the weekend, where we’ll review & discuss the material from the lecture, give others an opportunity to showcase what they’re working on and share answers to the questions that were posted.
Hi @aakashns. I’m a new user of Zoom. Could you tell me how to do that? (and if you know an online guide about Zoom, could you share the link? Many thanks)
Hello. I can see that some of you have already created a local study group and will use online tools like zoom, slack, telegram, etc.
On my side, I would like to use this forum but as Jeremy said, it will not be opened until the official release of course videos. Then, I plan to install a Discourse Forum somewhere as I think it is the best online working tool for a DL group (github of Discourse).
Some of you have an experience of that? Even better, if you know a Discourse Forum about DL where I could create threads for my local group, could you share the link please? Many thanks in advance!
Hi @pierreguillou, Zoom is a pretty simple & intuitive video conferencing app. All you need to do is download the Desktop application, start a meeting and share the link with participants. It support screen share and live chat, so it’s quite well suited for study groups. Give it a a shot, and let me know if you face any issues during setup, I’d be happy to assist.
Hi @pierreguillou I streamed the live video to our TWiML Study Group over Zoom quite successfully. I monitored the Zoom chat for comments about sound and video quality and there were no problems or complaints. I recorded the meeting on the cloud, so that we can re-stream the video tomorrow night (Jeremy allows re-streaming within 1 or 2 days).
A Note on Sharing: Jeremy has said that we can share the livestream to our study group (but not give out the link to the livestream) , and we can restream to our study group a day or two after the livestream.
Here are some tips for streaming over Zoom:
Under Settings: Recording you can set Zoom to record the video to your local machine
The paid version also has option to record to the Cloud
On Zoom Advanced Sharing Options, set "Who can share" to "Only Host"
Turn up the volume
Maximize your screen
Under the More... tab on the bar with the green Share button: check the boxes for share computer sound and optimize share for full screen videoclip
Make sure the navigation bar with the URL is hidden from viewers (else they could provide the link to unauthorized persons)
Monitor the chat for complaints about sound/video quality
If there are problems with the audio, try changing the options on the Settings:Audio menu: Suppress Persistent Background Noise, Suppress Intermittent Background Noise, Echo cancellation (these controls may be available only in paid version)
Controls that are available to you can be found in the Settings:Meetings tab
In the Settings: Recording tab, check that Local recording is selected, but if you are re-streaming Jeremy’s lesson to an audience that includes “uninvited” folks, be sure to uncheck the box Hosts can give participants the permission to record locally
Hi @Jess, we conducted the re-streaming session over Zoom yesterday, and it went perfectly. There were no major issues. We simply started a Zoom webinar (normal video call should also work), and played the YouTube video on full screen on the host laptop.
@jcatanza What’s the TWiML Study Group schedule? I saw the poll, but not the selected date/time. Maybe I missed it posted here… thanks for the Zoom tips, especially about hiding the URL and audio settings.
