So remember that Instagram Live is a good alternative for some of your contact with young people, but not all of it.
Two students looking at their mobile phones on their bikes. Photo via Hogeschool Rotterdam.
Practical tips
Besides preparing and involving colleagues, we ultimately learned the most by just getting started. We would like to share some practical tips from our experience:
Prepare the content and structure well together . Give an introduction, prepare a list of topics, agree on who does what, complement each other and close with an opportunity to ask questions afterwards. Practice this in advance.
Always use a moderator to remove potential trolls during the live session . This gives the young buy bulk sms service people who are going live confidence and support.
Don't let the session go on too long . 30 minutes worked fine for us.
Make sure you have a good announcement in your timeline and story . Preferably a video in which the student introduces himself, with a question sticker and a countdown.
Also make sure you have a good announcement . For example, again in a story, with a reference to IGTV and contact options.
If you are going to do a series of live Q&As: make sure there is consistency . And give a maximum of 1 per day to be able to announce it properly.
But above all: have faith in the young people and let them tell their own story . All 49 live sessions we did with students went well and were a party to watch for us.
Curious about the live sessions? You can watch them in the IGTV feed of Hogeschool Rotterdam.
We are also very curious about experiences of other schools and universities. How do you approach online education? Let us know in the comments.