General Workflow of a VMT Session
Launching Local and Remote Sessions
Step 1: select one of the video conferencing options
Step 2: Copy the invitation link and wait for the Client
Introduction
The final goal of Packs is to be used during daily practice with Learners. The VM Toolset allows you to execute these sessions in an unrestricted way; it means you can load as many Packs as you want during the session, view the slides of a Pack in any order and repeat the same slides as desired to adapt better to particular requirements of specific learners or situations that may arise during the Session.
The application generates a report when you finalize the Session; it includes a detailed log of the Packs loaded, the Slides visited and any Data captured during the interactions with the Learner.
General Workflow of a VMT Session
The general workflow when working with sessions is described in the following diagram:
Planning the Session
The Planning step is not mandatory but a recommended practice. Decide which Packs you want to work with during a Session with the Learner will allow you to decide the loading order, the requirements of customization of Client Preferences (see VMT Tutorial 6 ) and record Data in a meaningful way (see VMT Tutorial 5 ).
Launch the Session
The main question to resolve when Launching a session is if you want to launch a Local or a Remote Session.
The criteria to decide is whether you plan to use the same device for both the User and the Learner or if each one will operate different devices.
Notice that this implies that not only do Remote Sessions work for situations where Teacher and Learner are in different physical locations, but they also work for situations where both Teacher and Learner are in the same room but want to keep social distance due to COVID restrictions. In this case, use the Remote Session with two devices but no videoconference.
You can load one or multiple Packs during a session, select slides to interact with the Learner, and capture data per each slide.
Finalize the Session
By finalizing a session, the application generates a detailed report of the activity, including loaded Packs, slides visited and Data recorded.
Launching Local and Remote Sessions
You can launch sessions (both local and remote) either from the Home Screen (1) or the lateral menu (2), as it is highlighted in the following screenshot:
After Clicking in the “Launch Session” option, a dialog will appear asking for the type of session you want to launch. Here you can also select if you are going to run a test session or a session with a Learner:
When you launch a Session without the “Run a Test Session” box checked, the system will ask you to pick one of your Learners from a list. When the “Run a Test Session” box is unchecked, the application will skip that step, and you will run in a “sandbox” context that is good for practicing.
In this tutorial, we will run no-test sessions to see the actual workflow with your Learners.
Note: Run Test Sessions is an excellent way to practice with the VM Toolset and try the Packs before meeting with the Learner.
Selecting a Client
If you didn’t check the “Run a Test Session” checkbox, a list of your clients will appear. In this example, we will choose the Learner “Rosita1”.
Remember that you should choose one of your Learners or use a Test Session for testing.
Working with a Local Session
When a Session is launched in local mode (either with a specific client or as a Test Session) a new window will appear, with a message inviting to load some Pack or select Client Preferences to start:
“Client Preferences” allows you to create custom profiles for each Learner, selecting the slides and cards available for a given Pack. For more details please visit the Tutorial 6: Customizing Client Preferences.
The “Packs - Open” option will allow you to browse the list of Packs and select one to load it.
Note: You can load multiple packs during a Session, and you can load the same Pack multiple times if required. Detailed tracking of all the times a Pack is loaded will be provided in the final report.
Once a Pack had been loaded, a toolbar with thumbnails of all their slides will be displayed at the bottom. A slide is loaded by clicking on his thumbnail. This is the aspect of a Local Session Screen what a Pack loaded and the first slide selected:
In the previous Screen, the following sections can be identified:
Current Slide (1)
is the area where the selected slide is displayed. Here you and the learner can interact with the cards and other elements of the Slide. If the cards were programmed to flip on touch, they will flip; if not they will be highlighted with a yellow border.
If the slide was configured with the “Shuffle on load” effect, the cards will swap position every time the slide is reloaded (by clicking on the thumbnail).
For details on the design of interactions in a slide, please visit Tutorial 1 , Tutorial 2 and Tutorial 3 .
Slides Preview Toolbar (2)
The slides preview toolbar allows you to change the current slide.
Toolbars Controls (3)
With these buttons, you can maximize the area used by the current slide by hiding the toolbars. There are two toolbars available: the Slides Preview Toolbar (3) and the Data Capture Toolbar.
For details about the Data Capture please refer to the Tutorial 4 .
Slide Filter (4)
This filter is useful to search slides based on their names, especially in Packs with a big number of slides.
Slide Viewer Options (5)
The Slide Viewer Options is a toolbar that controls the currently loaded slide.
You can configure the zoom either by manually dragging the zoom slider or by using the autozoom feature:
You can also switch the behavior of the Slide between “default” and “edit” mode.
in Default Mode cards are highlighted or flipped according to the slide’s configuration. This is the mode when interactions with the Learner are expected.
in Edit Mode, you can make temporal, not persistent changes to the slide, like hiding, flipping, and moving cards.
You can toggle between Default and Edit Modes by clicking on the Edit button.
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Default Mode |
Edit Mode |
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Remember that changes made during Edit Mode are not saved. The changes will be lost the next time you load the slide.
Edit Mode is an optional feature that provides the teacher the ability to modify the current slide in order to experiment with how the Learner reacts to different conditions.
For example: in the slide displayed in the previous images, the goal is that the Learner identifies the word for the symbol “1”. Let’s suppose that the Learner picks the right one at the first attempt, but the Learner suspects he just chose randomly. Then, the Teacher may use the Edit Mode to hide the right answer and ask again to the learner, expecting that he says “It is none of them” instead of picking randomly some of the other cards.
Establishing a Remote Session
Remote Sessions differs from Local Sessions in the fact that the Teacher and the Learner are using different devices, connected through a network.
The typical use case is for remote situations when both of them are in different physical locations, but other uses cases may arise, like social distancing on the same classroom.
Step 1: select one of the video conferencing options
You can indicate if you want to use full videoconference (video and audio), only audio, or only chat.
For the usage of the “Video and Audio” option please verify that there are no other applications using the camera or your operating system supports sharing the same camera with multiple applications.
Step 2: Copy the invitation link and wait for the Client
When the session starts, you will be presented with an invitation link that you should send to your client in order to join you.
Sending of the link can be done by any available medium, like Whatsapp, email, etc.
The client can join the session just by visiting the link. No password nor registration are required.
In the following screen recording, we can see the initialization of a remote session. The screen of the Teacher is at the left. The screen of the Learner is at the right (notice that we selected “only chat” for the conference mode):
The links are not reusable. Each Remote Session will produce a new Link.
Working with a Remote Session
Working with a Remote Session is similar to work with a local one. The main difference is that the screen of the Learner won’t show the Slidebar and Data Toolbars, nor menu options to load Packs:
A nice feature of Remote Sessions is that both the Teacher and the Learner can interact with each Slide.
They can highlight and flip cards and use interactive Wheels in real-time (notice that when clicking the cards from left to right, the cursor is on the Teacher window, but when clicking from right to left, the cursor is on the Learner window):
Final Considerations
- When working with Local Sessions (in the same device) use the Hide option to keep the Slide list and Data Capture toolbars from the bottom hidden most of the time. Only make them visible at the moments when you need either change a slide or capture data. In this way, the Learner won’t be distracted by the additional elements on the screen.
- Visit the User Guide for more information about videoconferencing and a troubleshooting guide in case you experience network or camera issues.
Additional resources
VMT Tutorial 1: Slides and Cards
VMT Tutorial 2: Editing Cards and Slides
VMT Tutorial 3: Random Cards and Decks
VMT Tutorial 4: Manual Data Capture
VMT Tutorial 5: Interactive Wheels for Data Capture
VMT Tutorial 6: Customizing Client Preferences