Technical Preparation for Joining in a High Participation Virtual Meeting or Workshop

High Participation Virtual Meetings are a lot more visual and interactive than typical virtual meetings.

We therefore strongly recommend that you use two screens to engage in them. (One of these can be on your laptop.) If you need guidance on connecting a second screen please click here.

Furthermore, interacting with online whiteboards tends to prove a lot easier with a mouse than a trackpad. From experience, we do not recommend engaging
over a touch screen device such as a tablet unless augmented with a mouse and keyboard.

Setting up your screens

We recommend that you arrange your video conferencing tool on one screen. And that you layout your visual interaction tool(s) on the other. (This is usually an advanced whiteboard of some description.)

This arrangement will enable you to share your attention across both parts of the meeting. Thus enabling you to fully participate in the conversation and screen sharing. And, at the same time, being fully able to contribute to the emerging conclusions.

Whilst engaging via just one screen is far from ideal, if it should prove necessary we recommend the following steps. Ensure your screen has a mouse and keyboard attached. Close all windows except the one for the visual interaction tool (online whiteboard) and the one for the meeting itself. Maximise both of these windows. Use Alt-Tab to switch quickly between them.

Understanding the tools

You may be very familiar with some of the virtual meeting tools you will be using. However, in high participation virtual meetings you may not be quite so familiar with others. Lack of familiarity and competence in how the tools work can easily disrupt the meeting. Or it will undermine your ability to follow and contribute to it. It is therefore vitally important that you develop a working knowledge of the tools that will be used before the event begins.

Fortunately, the tool developers are usually good at ensuring people are able to quickly understand how to participate. We have collated some of the most popular ones here. If yours is not listed, then search the tool name and the words ‘getting started’ and you will find some resources to help you online.

Beyond that, the other requirements of participating online are likely to be very familiar to you (click here if your would like further explanation of these):

For further helpful guidance on participating effectively, take a look at  https://meeting.toolchest.org/getting-ready-to-participate/