Virtual CLWG: Tip 1 Joining Virtual CLWG by Deborah Southwell

For many of us, participating in a virtual CLWG is a new experience.

These general tips are offered as points to assist all of us to participate in the sessions smoothly.

Your CLWG time and space at home

Try to find a quiet space. Let others you live with know you are in an online meeting. Ask them to:

reduce distractions for you as much as possible.
Avoid or minimise their use of bandwidth, including downloading games while you are online. (perhaps this is a good opportunity to develop some common house rules around managing the family bandwidth!)

Always check your background (what is behind you when you are online). Often a blank wall is the best background.

While in-platform backgrounds are beautiful and/or fun, you may find you disappear into the background which can be quite distracting – and annoying if you want to show something to the other participants.

Make sure you have a bottle or glass of water to keep yourself hydrated.

Your computer

For a good connection, a computer or laptop is preferable to a tablet or mobile phone.

Camera and Microphone

Please make sure you have a camera and microphone on your PC or Laptop.

Headphones

Headphones are advised for best audio and any video

Better Browsers

The main communication platforms used in virtual CLWG now are:

Jitsi
Discord
Conceptboard

Jitsi, Discord, and Conceptboard work better on Chrome or Firefox web browsers, so you may find it helps to download one of these beforehand if you do not use it already.

A Good Connection

The quality of your experience will come down to your own internet connection.

Either a strong wireless network connection or a wired network connection (Ethernet) is needed to get the most reliable connection.

WIFI Connection

Use your computer as close to the wireless router as you can to ensure a good WIFI connection.

Wired (Ethernet) Connection

A wired (Ethernet) connection will always give a more reliable (better) connection than a wireless one.

To connect your computer to the router using an Ethernet cable both your computer and modem will need to have Ethernet ports.

They are normally labelled with this symbol (right).

Every router normally comes with a short Ethernet cable, however if you can’t find it or the one you have is not long enough you can buy one from Amazon or Argos.

This is what an Ethernet cable looks like (right)

Troubleshooting

Screen freeze

If your screen ‘freezes’, your best options are:

close any other tabs that are open
stop any other downloading or playing of other internet programs at the same time as the workshop / game
reload your internet tab and re-click into the link
check your modem is still working
check connections of the cords
- computer with the modem
- computer with the power source