with a knock on your door or calling out your name. • If you can manage it, two screens are best for a desktop pre- sentation. It allows you to have one screen as the audience view and the other as your management screen, showing the PowerPoint presentation along with comments and informa- tion on your audience – names, who has video, who is unmut- ed, etc. • Make sure you have a strong WiFi connection. If possible, the moderator should originate the call from a hard-wired Ether- net connection, like a desktop or laptop networked computer. If you can’t do this, move around the site until you find the location for the strongest WiFi signal. • If you’re using a PowerPoint or other type of slide presenta-
• Provide an unstructured time for participants to just chat amongst themselves to replicate the social connections that seemed so commonplace just months ago. • Script your presentation rather than winging it. Improvisation in-person is much easier than doing it online where it can seem like an exercise without direction. Some of the day service sessions that have been well-re- ceived are online book clubs, scavenger hunts within a person’s home, healthy cooking lessons, talent shows, exercise sessions and money management. With many of the individuals in our employment programs furloughed during this crisis, remote connections to keep interviewing and job skills honed were very important, along with teaching them the practices they will need to use to stay safe and healthy when they return to their workplace. To make these virtual services possible, we’ve added a sig- nificant number of tablets and smartphones to keep our partic- ipants and staff connected. In order to ensure that these devic- es are secure and available with relevant apps, we’ve made the important investment in a Mobile Device Management (MDM) system throughout the agency. Prior to implementing the MDM system, an iPad would turn up with an unknown passcode and become an unusable tech brick. All of these significant expendi- tures have relied upon the funding received from our affiliated Arc Westchester Foundation, as government funds haven’t been available to pay for this investment in personal technology. As this is being written in late August 2020, our agency’s physical programs are slowly and carefully reopening on a lim- ited basis. We are emerging from this experience with the pride of low mortality rates and an enthusiastic workforce striving to help our participants rejoin their communities. There are per- manent lessons from this experience, such as: • The barriers that have been successfully broken down be- tween agency departments as a matter of necessity during the pandemic must be nurtured so that open lines of commu- nication remain an essential part of our organization. • Virtual services will be a permanent part of our learning tool- kit. • Due to the fact that our staff need more tools to support Life- long Learning, we need to develop interactive video lessons they can readily use with their program participants, limiting the lesson preparation time required of the staff, giving them the ability to pause the presentation and engage in lively re- al-time local group discussions and. An elementary example of this type of tool is the first in our “Advocacy Game Show” series that you can preview at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vvys7RalVSU • We can learn so much from the K-12 system and the virtual services they’ve developed and also those our fellow adult agencies have created. We see a definite need for a central- ized portal where best practices and learning resources for virtual services can be collected, shared and leveraged to our
tion, take a look at the slides and ensure: • Simple, non-distracting slide design
• Minimal text on each slide and make sure font is read- able. A slide deck shouldn’t be a book or the presentation script. • Text should be direct – not everything has to be put into full sentences. Just highlight the main points! Use graph- ic to emphasize your message • At the outset, tell people what you’re going to cover, do it, and then recap what you’ve covered in the session. • Is the session scheduled for a good time of day, not too early or too late, based upon your audience? • Is the session a good length? An hour is a long time to main- tain people’s interests. • Be human, but don’t make excuses for mistakes – just move on! Don’t dwell on the problem and freeze. • Enlist the support of families and residential staff to help with the scheduling and logistics arrangement for virtual sessions. Provide them with a schedule and list of topics for upcoming sessions. • Review online etiquette with participants so that sessions start on time, with limited crosstalk and abundant respect for everyone involved (see our Zoom Tips at https://youtu.be/YMl-r0C4zQs).
YouTube Video - https://youtu.be/YMl-r0C4zQs
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