Era of Online Lectures and Tutorials

I have decided to implement online lectures and tutorials for all my courses, using Google Meet and Smart Hadir.

Software Required

Microsoft Windows browser:
Google Meet

Android Apps:
Android Hangouts Meet

Apple iOS Apps:
iOS Hangouts Meet

Android Smart-Hadir

iOS Smart-Hadir

Procedure

This means that I do not require students to attend my lectures and tutorials any more.
Their attendances can be verified by using Smart-Hadir, chat and video recording of student.
I would require students to switch on their camera all the time but switch off their microphone unless they want to ask questions that cannot be written down in the chat.

All the sessions will be recorded for students to refer to and qualifying agencies to verify the standard of teaching and attendances.

UMS has a license to Google Meet but Hangouts Meet is supposed to be limited to 30 users. I managed to get 31 students out of 45 in total.

Hangouts Meet Specifications

Extracted from Hangouts Meet apps description:
Key features include:
• High-definition video and audio meetings with up to 250* participants





Not sure how high but students can read large texts but not small texts in my FULL HD, 1920 x 1080 screen, and I have no way of controlling the resolution of the presentation, i.e. the video that is sent to the users. I can only control the video of presenter and receiver from 720p to 360p but the image quality actually isn't obvious between them.

You can present just a window or the entire screen. I thought full screen presentation will slow it down so much that the voice is distorted. It does not appear to be so, if we disable the video camera from the students.
 
• Real-time captions powered by Google speech-to-text technology
I used it by enabling the caption. Useful in order to check the quality of my spoken English.

• Easy access - just share a link and anyone can join with one click from desktop or mobile
This is verified. They can use any email and their names are actually recorded in the chat. These are probably extracted from the Android and Apple accounts in their phones.

Possible Problems

It is possible that the cost of data is too high for students but travelling cost is even higher. Not to mention other costs. The possibility of low bandwidth areas even in Sabah is very low. If signal is too low, they can move to a different place where signal is good. Even on top of a hill if required.