Fogelberg, F & Tavanyar, J (2015). 10 Commandments

Focus on the strengths of synchronous virtual communication - dialogue. However, this does not mean only top-down from lecturer/teacher to students but also 'up' from the students and also 'between' peers.

Ensure you have designed opportunities for interactivity. Give the students small tasks and actions to do in order to engage with you and with each other.

Use features available in the meeting interface to engage participant's attention such as whiteboards, annotation tools, file sharing, emoticons, video, polls, question and answer forums etc.

Like we have advised for asynchronous environments, so here we advise address the social aspect of the meeting. Encourage participants to engage socially. Ideally set up a check-in and check-out activity that blends social with the need to ascertain prior knowledge and what has been learned during the meeting.

Provide structure and clarity as to what is expected. For example communicate the time and date of a meeting. When setting an activity provide clear instructions as to what is required and how long is available for the exercise. Its a good idea to have the objective of the meeting well communicated, the agenda of the meeting available ahead of time and try to review any previous learning that is required to understand the latest meeting.

Apply a virtual etiquette. Provide ground rules as to what is acceptable behavior. Here is an example of what that etiquette might be. Adapt as per context.

Keep it short and use energy breaks. If sessions are 90 minutes or longer work in energy breaks of about 5 minutes.

If your platform has them available use the virtual break-out rooms to encourage discussion between peers. This provides everyone with an opportunity to speak and provides an activity.

Where possible use visual cues rather than rely on words on the screen, or worse, the spoken word. Use a presentation rich in visual imagery to maintain engagement and highlight important messages.

Where possible provide opportunities to practice. While this is not always possible on the synchronous platform this might mean providing activities on the LMS that link to what was demonstrated on the synchronous platform.