Virtual Office Hours BRB and Bathroom Signs

 

Coaching looks very different in a distance learning environment. Most of our coaching interactions take place virtually. A common coaching practice is on-call, virtual office hours. This is something I do daily. I am on-call for 2-3 hours at a time. During those hours, situations arise where I need to step away to assist a teacher or head to the restroom. When that occurs, what happens to colleagues who join the video call and I am not there? 

To deal with those situations, I created a slide deck in Google Slides called "Signage". This slide deck has slides, with built in timers, for when I am on a restroom break or away helping a colleague. This can be done if you are doing office hours or on-call help as a coach, admin or classroom teacher. The videos below show what my screen looks like when I am away. 

Once you've created your "away from the screen" slide, have open in another tab and share it just like you'd share your screen in a video call. Below, you will see how to do this in both Zoom and Google Meet.

Zoom

Google Meet

If you have any questions and would like a follow up, contact me via Gmail or Hangouts at ajuarez@techcoachjuarez.com. If you would like to unsubscribe from this blog, go to bit.ly/tcjinbox.

My book, The Complete EdTech Coach: An Organic Approach to Digital Learning, co-authored with my wife Katherine Goyette is due out in October/November of 2020. It will be published by Dave Burgess Publishing. Keep an eye out on this blog and on social media. Be sure to follow the hashtag #OrganicEdTech and #CVTechTalk for updates.