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This blog post has grown out of a talk I did for the group SME Force For Good on the 27th of November. The group runs informative and fascinating talks on alternate Friday mornings, with a round of networking afterwards. If you have a small business and want to get involved then check out the Facebook group and come along to the next meeting.
This blog post is going to look at how to improve your video and audio set up with Zoom for teaching dancing/fitness online. There are a few things you can do, but they do all require additional purchases. I have linked some of the items I use to record my online tech learning courses as they are the ones I’ve tried and tested. I spent yesterday re-modelling our spare room into what is now called the ‘activities’ room. We removed the bed, put lights up added external speakers an external monitor etc so there is a good place for me to go and do my dance classes that are moving online.
The pending isolation requirements means that very soon classes will not be able to be attended in person, so they have to be cancelled or move online. This is not an easy thing to do remotely, there is much more complexity than just moving your regular Monday meeting online. So, using my day job skills, I’ve worked out the best way to teach dancing over an online conferencing platform. This blog post will go through the basic set up that will work with little to no extra equipment. I will follow this up with another post that shows you and your students how to download Zoom. I will also follow with another post which covers some optional extras to improve the quality of your sound, video and set up if you want to take the extra steps.
I am very pleased to say that last week I was awarded fellowship of the Institute of Physics (IOP). This is something I have worked towards since finishing my first degree and I am very proud to be able to say that I am now a fellow of the IOP.
Fellowship is the highest grade of membership in the IOP, if you want to know more about fellowship of the IOP: https://www.iop.org/membership/join/fellow/page_51405.html
I have been a member of 4 different professional bodies over my career, joining and leaving as my job has altered. The one staple in the last 20 something years has been the IOP. I joined the IOP during the first week of my physics degree, to be fully honest I didn't realise exactly what they did at that point, but they offered me a monthly physics magazine, the best paper diary I have ever used and all for £16 for a 4 year membership. Bargain. Yes, this was back in the 90's when paper diaries were a thing and no, they haven't sent them out for years. However, I was very glad that I decided to join as the benefits are far wider ranging than I could have imagined.
I am going to discuss a few benefits of belonging to your professional body and some specific examples where I have benefited.
I recently attended my first Institute of Physics business accelerator breakfast meeting. The focus of this particular meeting was social media and how to use it for your business. Having started my own business this year I thought it would be a good idea to go along and see how I could better use social media. It was also a great opportunity to get some continued learning in, which can be very difficult to do when you work in a highly specialised area.
