Regardless of the platform you are using for video meetings GET OUT OF FULL SCREEN MODE! Full screen is awesome if you’re just having conversations, but not so awesome if you say “Go to whiteboard.fi” and visualize a negative number. Now the students have to be on the computer doing something and not in the video conference.
Exit Full Screen
Depending on your device there are different ways to exit full screen mode. On a PC look in the upper right and locate what looks like a single square or 2 squares together. Toggle this to enter/exit full screen. Click here for some keyboard shortcuts. On a Mac look in the upper left instead. The green circle enters and exits full screen mode.
Resize the Video
Here is a great digital literacy skill that is clearly a must have for the 21st century… being able to multi-task programs. Can you arrange 2 browser windows or 2 different programs side by side to use both at the same time? Resize the video chat to be smaller and on the right side of the screen. Then whatever tool you’re interacting with be it Google Slides, whiteboard.fi, Kahoot, Quizizz, or or or or …. resize that to be on the left side.
Toggle Video Full Screen
If you’re doing an interactive video meeting you need people to be collaborating on the same Docs/Slides or playing Kahoot, or… and then you need everyone to come back and chat. Once we all master full screen this will be a snap, but will take practice. On the video chat click on the full screen icon. Then when you want to go back to interacting, toggle that full screen icon and it will put the video back in the same spot and size you resized it. Magic!
