A laptop or tablet, headphones with a microphone, a table, and a corner of the house where nobody walks past. That is the whole list. The two things that quietly ruin lessons are a phone propped against a cushion and a child sitting on a bed.
The short list
- Device
- A laptop or tablet. A phone screen is too small to read from and too easy to tip over.
- Sound
- Headphones with a microphone. Built-in speakers make the teacher hear her own voice back, and she will spend the lesson waiting for the echo to stop.
- Seating
- A table and a chair. A child on a bed or a sofa slides down it within ten minutes, and their reading slides with them.
- Place
- A corner where nobody passes. Not the middle of the sitting room during dinner.
- Internet
- Anything that carries a video call. If the picture stutters, turn the camera off and keep the sound -- the lesson is the sound.
The setup mistakes that cost the most
- The Qaida or Quran out of reach, so the first five minutes go to finding it.
- A sibling in the same room on a tablet without headphones.
- The device logged into a child's game account, one notification away from a different afternoon.
- A charger that is not plugged in. A lesson that ends at 8% is a lesson that ended early.
Two minutes before the lesson
- Book open at the right page, pencil next to it.
- Headphones on, sound tested.
- Water within reach.
- One Google Meet link, saved once and used every week -- ours never changes, so nobody hunts for it.
Related
What happens in a first online Quran lesson
What to expect once you are set up.
Keeping kids focused in an online class
When attention is the problem, not the setup.
Child safety in online classes
Who else is in the lesson.