Bonnie: Okay so we are now recording our session on how to improve your internet connection, especially for remote teaching and if
You
Need notes for this session.
You can get them.
On the emergency remote teaching guide, which you can find by clicking this red link any
A direct viewpoint. Now, and it'll bring you to the emergency room about teaching guide and click on the troubleshooting page down at the bottom you'll see some notes and these the things we're going to go through today.
And the first thing I've done is when I'm having trouble or before I'm having trouble. I'm getting ready for a meeting. If I go to speed test.net and hit go.
And I run through the speed test which tells me my pink speed my downloads feed and my upload speed.
You can't necessarily change these unless you call your internet provider and get an increased package.
But this will give you a sense of, if you're going to have trouble doing certain things, or how your students connections blank compared to yours. If your students are having trouble or something like that.
The pink speed is the lower this number is the better. That's sort of, it's almost like a sonar it bounces off something and comes back to you and tells you how quickly that happened.
Anything under 40 herald is is a good number.
If you have numbers higher than that, that it's going to provide that's going to make you have some latency in your back and forth connection.
Now I don't have broadband my town doesn't have files yet or fiber optic or anything like that. We still have high speed DSL, and my package is actually 20 megabits download at 1.5 megabits upload
But you'll see my speed is actually my current speed when I just tested it today is 17.23 that's how fast I'm
Bringing information.
To my computer and my upload speed is supposed to be a total of 1.5 megabits, but right now it's only at point seven, eight, which is pretty slow.
And it might be because I'm using some of that to upload my video so that you all can see it and other things that are happening on my computer.
But I'll test this at different times on different days and sometimes my download speed is as low as 10 or 11 and my upload speed is as good as 1.2 or 1.3
I don't have with these numbers even down around 10 1215 I don't have a lot of problems with zoom sharing my screen doing breakout room staying connected. I have nice smooth audio.
But if you have numbers that are lower than this. That could be challenging or if you're some of your students do
That may be while they sometimes would have trouble watching a video a video might come through with choppy audio or people might freeze for a second, as they're downloading their video, that sort of thing. So you want to be aware
If some if any of your students have a very slow internet connection before you show a video.
So if you guys want to minimize zoom and run this on your own, feel free. You can always do it after the fact. Um, the higher your download and upload speeds are, the less
You're going to have in, zoom, but just remember that your connection speed doesn't affect your students and network speed everybody else. Everybody has their own bandwidth issues. So you just might want to be aware of that.
So the first place that you can check is with your broadband provider your bandwidth is sort of a series of chain links between your internet provider and your actual computers Ethernet card. Sorry about that.
And there are steps the weakest step in the link is the one that's going to slow you down the most. So you have the connection to your home and then you have some internal wiring that goes to your router your wireless router probably and modem.
And then you have the wireless connection that goes between your router and your computer and then you have your computer processing speed and all of those things in a chain, you have to sort of do some investigating to check out. So if you could raise your hand if
The thing you have to pay for mostly is the bandwidth from your provider. So start where you are, if you test it. If you've got some high speed internet 25 megabit download 50 megabit download, you should be fine. Some people have a lot higher 100 or 200 or something like that.
But what you can work on, for example.
Is making the connection between your wireless router and your laptop or your desktop, a little bit faster you can connect it with an Ethernet cord instead of using Wi Fi and I'd say that's always or almost always got to be faster than using Wi Fi.
Russell W French: So I have a question there. That's okay.
Go ahead, Russell.
Russell W French: Um, I have a
Russell W French: I started my master's degree in 2016 went all the way through that and I'm now in my fourth year of my doctorate degree and all the while I have used a $250 HP
Russell W French: Notebook thing. I don't know what the thing is even called I bought it at Staples, and it's done great it's done everything I needed it to do but
Russell W French: My son who literally runs the internet on the Air Force Base, your Vandenberg Air Force Base came and he set me up with a cord for that.
Russell W French: So that I could go directly to my modem and he said that it in fact didn't speed it up a bit, because the machine has to work harder to process the
Russell W French: Data in some different way and my machine didn't have the guts to do that. Is there a specific computer that you would suggest is best
Russell W French: For zoom and these sorts of things do you think the Mac or the the PC side of the house is a better product for this sort of a situation as I assume we're going to be staying this way for quite some time.
So I'm going to defer Harold on this question.
But in general, it's going to be about your processor. If you can get a computer with dual processors that are I five core or higher. And now I'm going to pass it off to Harold and see if he wants to
Correct me or add to that.
Russell W French: I'm really happy we're recording this.
Harold Hale: Yeah.
Harold Hale: There's, there's
There's several factors there.
Harold Hale: If your processor definitely being one and there. It all depends upon and I just the speed of the primary processor. But do you have also have a graphics processor as well. If you have a graphics processor that can take a lot of a load off of video
Harold Hale: Video that you're broadcasting off that primary processor and it's going to help things a whole lot a lot of Max have a graphics was called a graphics card processor
Harold Hale: Right, it's separate from for the main one.
Harold Hale: And so therefore, they tend to do video a little better.
Harold Hale: But
Harold Hale: Any PC that has a separate graphics card would be able to do the same thing.
Russell W French: Oh and and how would I mean, is that what I would ask a retailer for doesn't have a separate graphics processor, then
Russell W French: Yes. Okay. And do you happen to know one of the machines. I'm interested in is the Mac Book Pro air thingy. And then the
Russell W French: Surface Pro whatever the number latest number is any ideas. And do you happen to know whether or not one or both of those have what it is you're talking about the
Mac.
Russell W French: And
Harold Hale: The Surface Pro. I'm not sure.
Russell W French: All right, great. Thank you. Yeah, sorry to take so long. Michelle and Meg, sorry.
No, it's okay. Yeah, take a look at the specific specifications and look at them side by side you will see processor speed side by side you will see if it's dual processor
And you will see if there is a you're getting a base graphics card or no graphics card so I sometimes buy from Dell because they do custom configurations
And they'll say, Okay, here's the five processes. You can pick in this computer. And I just spent, I decided to spend more money on my process or
More money on my RAM and more money on my graphics card because I want my computer to last longer. So if you have the option to compare side by side. That's what you want to do.
Russell W French: Again, super happy I'm recording this, I can show it to my son.
Harold Hale: He can tell us where we got it wrong.
Russell W French: Thanks Boomer
All right, yes. Anybody else has questions feel
Free to break in. I want this to be pretty custom and tailored to what what issues you're having
And that's, you know, Russ is example. His, His the slowest thing in his chain is his computer processor, cuz his computer is older.
It's not necessarily the speed he's getting from his internet provider or even his Wi Fi in his house. It's just that his computer can't keep keep up with the speed of what's happening. So
Monona Wali: I have a question about me.
Go ahead, banana,
Monona Wali: Yeah. Um, what would you say are the
Monona Wali: Minimum
Monona Wali: Of those numbers, the download and the upload. I'm actually not am in the desert, and I have, I want to try and do some classes from out here. I'm when I'm not in Santa Monica. I have higher know speeds. But I want to know what is the minimum. You think I need
Monona Wali: To get a good solid zoom connection.
I WOULD SAY, I'M GOING TO LET HAROLD answer. Um, I believe I could teach a class in zoom with minimal interruptions with what I have, which is a one, a megabit 1.5
megabit upload bucks I if I were going to teach regularly if it wasn't just a one off class I would want to get a higher bandwidth than what I have
Mine, I think, is the bare minimum.
Harold Hale: Yeah.
Monona Wali: I'm sorry.
It's 20 megabit download
At 1.5 megabit upload and it's my uploads be that's really the problem I want more like five megabits or 10 megabits to be really comfortable
Okay.
Go ahead, Harold.
Harold Hale: Yeah yeah this was, as I was saying,
Harold Hale: Typically I would, I would recommend at least 20 to 25 download and about two to 2.5 upload to be able to do that consistently even at that speed, you're going to, you're going to start to see problems with
Harold Hale: With broadcasting like video clips and that sort of thing.
Harold Hale: Even if you've got a good graphics processor and there's, there's that.
Harold Hale: So yeah, and you may need to turn off your camera while you're doing while you're showing a video that's typically the typical work around the absolute, absolute minimum.
Harold Hale: You can you can go down. I think as far as like five or 10
Harold Hale: Download one upload
Harold Hale: But I mean, you're not going to be able to show video your camera is going to be
Harold Hale: You probably want to turn it off.
Harold Hale: But you can at least do you do audio and some screen shares, and I would be careful about what a screen share
And then there's another big elephant or three in the room, and that's how many other people in your house are sharing your bandwidth
This is not how much bandwidth you individually have if you have four people in your house working from home doing schoolwork on the internet, while you are
teaching a class, even if their gaming on your TV internet based gaming is going to be taking up your bandwidth speed, your TV can be downloading shows
And taking up your bandwidth speed if you have newer smart TVs that sort of thing. So you have to consider how much bandwidth, you're going to be using at the max time in your house.
At that time when you're teaching. If you're the only one at home because you're teaching at in the evening or in the morning or when other people are away.
Then it's not so much an issue this baseline may work for you, but if you have other people in your house, doing things on the internet. At the same time, you're definitely going to want something a lot higher than that. Yeah.
Harold Hale: Also, I would be
Harold Hale: It will be talking about types of internet connectivity. I mean, you can have Wi Fi. You can have
Harold Hale: Cable into your home, you can have DSL into your home. I'm one of the things you can use your cell phone as a Wi Fi hotspot, as far as that goes.
Harold Hale: But the one, the one type of internet. I do not recommend if you're going to be doing soon satellite internet
Harold Hale: And that's because you can have of her renders paying rate. I mean, in the hundreds and so therefore your video is going to be jittery and you're going to have occasional problems with audio. Even so, yeah, if someone's trying to sell you Hughes napped or one of those
Harold Hale: Keep walking and it's fine for email. It's five for asynchronous stuff, but for video like this.
Harold Hale: It's going to be a challenge. Now, that said, You'll and Musk is working on his network supposed to have much lower latency.
Harold Hale: Well, his constellation of satellites. I don't know when that's going to be available. Generally, and I can't say for sure what the latency is going to be on it, but hopefully it will be much much much improved and that will work a lot better for people
So if you have a choice. Don't choose satellite. Correct. Yeah.
Harold Hale: until further notice.
Ingrid Ingerson: Hi, good morning. I had a question. And let's go
Ahead Ingrid.
Ingrid Ingerson: Hey good morning and good afternoon. I have a webinar presenter next week. So similarly, he's out on Orcas Island.
Ingrid Ingerson: And in the zoom meetings that he and I have had getting ready for the webinar that he's presenting next week, he's often had to he you know his reception is very poor. And we've had to
Ingrid Ingerson: And the call and talk on the phone. So I, I, if I find all of these resources really helpful. So I'll be working with him.
Ingrid Ingerson: this weekend's on identifying you know what system, he is and why we're at. So I'll be doing some troubleshooting with him this weekend.
Ingrid Ingerson: But if I'm in a situation. I think the webinars. Next Thursday, where there's nothing we can do to address some of these underlying connection issues.
Ingrid Ingerson: What would you recommend or may I talk with you my idea which is we'll start the zoom meeting if he cuts out
Ingrid Ingerson: Is it the best for him to then joined by phone or rejoin again with no audio and then should I be sort of ready to sort of
Ingrid Ingerson: Run his slides. If he's on audio. Can you sort of provide for me these sort of like emergency triage ideas if we're in the midst of the webinar. I think we have about 60 people registered
My number one emergency trios trip tip.
Is to try it out ahead of time.
Yeah. So when you talk to him this weekend. Yeah. Connect to him using his computer do the speed test.net see what the
speeds are see if the numbers look reasonable
If they look reasonable, you can have some confidence.
Okay, have him also join with his cell phone and see if his voice is more because the voice is really the most important you need him to speak with his
Keys. So if he can make sure his zoom account also has a photo of him. Like, I see.
You have a lovely tree and background, which is lovely and just fine.
But if he's your primary
Speaker you want
To make sure that he has a profile photo so that he can turn off his video
On his phone or his computer whichever against delivers better audio so at least you have a static face on the screen.
Ingrid Ingerson: Without a voice and if
You his materials in head so that you can screen share instead of having him screen share that would be better Harold you have things to add
Harold Hale: Yeah, that is that is the work that the typical work around. Okay, someone else do the actual screen share and the slides and basically he's there on audio video of possible but if not an audio only
Harold Hale: Next slide. Next slide. Okay.
Ingrid Ingerson: Okay, great.
That's a great question and grid. I know a lot of people. The same is true when you have a guest lecturer in your class right versus if it's a webinar or anything. Right.
Ingrid Ingerson: Right.
Ingrid Ingerson: Okay, thank you.
Does anybody else have a question they want to chime in that we can help troubleshoot
Monona Wali: Yeah, I have another question. Um, one of the most common problems I had even in. Well, mostly in Santa Monica where I think I have really good connectivity is my screen does free so lot. Um, you know, and I get a message internet connection unstable. Is there anything I can do about that.
My best tip is right before you have an important zoom meeting to shut down your computer, let's say an hour before half an hour before
Once you've got everything prepped shut down your computer started up from scratch.
Only turn on zoom and anything that you need to share don't turn on. Don't open a bunch of web browsers don't open a bunch of broke web browser windows.
Don't open applications like Excel or some Photoshop things that take up a lot of system resources, even with my internet connection speed when I start and
Start a zoom meeting for a couple of seconds. I can't click on my web browser windows and tell zoom lets go of some of my computer processing brain and gives it back to my web browser. So I can do stuff in my
Web browser even simple things like closing tabs. So also, if you have a you have a Mac or PC.
Mac. Okay, so I may have Harold show us how to get to the Task Manager on Mac. I'm going to show you on Windows, I hit control, alt, delete, and a little lock screen comes up and it lets me pick task manager or I can go to my start menu and type in Task Manager.
And I can open the Task Manager.
All right. And when I do that, it gives me, I'm looking for my mind taking a little while and my audio and video might go a little wonky for a second.
I'm just waiting for it to come up. It tells you how much of your processors being used. How much of your
Memory is being used and which applications are using it so you know what's open
My task manager just doesn't seem to want to open right now. That doesn't surprise me.
Harold Hale: Have a few questions.
Yeah.
Harold Hale: Question that one would be a. Are you connecting wirelessly or wired.
Do you have an Ethernet cable from your
Router to the
Monona Wali: Mac and I'm connected wirelessly.
Okay.
Harold Hale: How often you reboot through wireless router.
Monona Wali: Not very often. Yeah.
Harold Hale: See, that's another thing you can do is, like, say, the day before GO IN TURN OFF, TURN OFF THAT wireless router counter 60 turn it back on.
Monona Wali: Okay.
Yeah, a restart on your hardware it clears out all the memory.
And then allows it to start fresh from scratch, whenever. That's the first thing. I usually do when I started having connection issues. It's not something you want to do in the middle of a meeting.
So maybe you do it every Sunday night or, you know, whenever you, you know, something like that before your week starts or if you are Thursday teacher, you do it on Tuesday nights or something like that so that you know you've set your
Setup in as clean as possible.
Harold Hale: Also, how old is your router.
Monona Wali: Um, it's probably about five years old.
Harold Hale: Yeah.
Harold Hale: You look at newer ones.
My internet provider provides my router.
Yeah, and so
You might call them up and ask them if they have a an exchange policy or something like that or what they would recommend
Or it may be when you I wouldn't go out and just buy one off the shelf right this minute if you're going to upgrade your internet connection. A lot of times when my internet provider. When I upgraded from three megabits to 20 megabits gave me a new free router.
When they came in installed it in my house and I went through my phone company because that's the only thing I can get here.
That's all that's available to us but
That's the first place before you if you're going to spend money only spend it wants to spend
Russell W French: Money. Sometimes when the internet provider provides you that
Russell W French: Router there's a charge for that or
Russell W French: You know, it's their router. They're just renting it to you.
So as long as you have their internet service that you'll have it so do check on the cost and compare. Go ahead, Harold.
Harold Hale: Well see, the thing is,
Harold Hale: Like, in my case, I have a cable modem, because I have cable, but there is no internal router with that I have my own router that I plug into that cable modem.
Harold Hale: So that's something else to consider. I mean, if that old if that cable modem is like really really old and just, you know, getting decrepit you're paying a monthly fee for a reason.
Harold Hale: Tell them to bring you a freshman.
Harold Hale: They will even if it's something off the shelf. If it's a couple years old. I mean, if it's better than the serial thing that's in there, then by all means. So yeah, fresh route the fresh modem and if you have an internal integrated piece that's modem and router, then
Harold Hale: Yeah.
Harold Hale: If it's five years old, and it's theirs. Yeah, I'm bring your freshman year.
Harold Hale: You're paying rent on it. Anyway, so yeah.
Monona Wali: Okay, don't, don't, don't.
Harold Hale: Don't pay rent on, don't, don't be run on a 77 Chevy
Anyone else
Lynn Dhanak: Yeah, this is Lana. I was wondering, Harold. I just put in the tech chat. So how old would you recommend a router be before we ask for a new one, or get a new one.
Harold Hale: Oh, would say that if yours was made within the last three years, that should be fine.
Lynn Dhanak: Okay.
Harold Hale: If it's older than that then. Yeah, because we've been increases in speed.
Harold Hale: On the wireless side of things.
Harold Hale: And you know better signal strength.
Harold Hale: Is your, your, yeah, that's something where you you you want to take advantage of the latest technology there.
Lynn Dhanak: Okay, and then
Lynn Dhanak: You can show us funny was saying that you show us the Task Manager and Mac.
I'm not sure you can show it. But why don't I I'll pull up the it's in your apple settings in the apple and my
Lynn Dhanak: I'm just trying to think about what I should be looking for when I get in there.
Can you share your screen and we'll help walk you through to find it.
Lynn Dhanak: That's okay, I've been there before. So just looking at what's see what's using what is what you're saying.
Yeah, it's only because Harold and I are check logged in on a PC that we can't share our screen. So I would not be, it would not go amiss if you wanted to share your screen for other Mac users who might be on
So, so they can see where it goes where it comes from, but
I can also pull up a web page that shows the instructions in the screenshot on how to do it.
Lynn Dhanak: Does everybody want me to share my screen. And I certainly can.
I'd love to. I think it'd be great.
Lynn Dhanak: Okay, just hang on a second, let me
70s.
It's called activity monitor on a Mac.
Lynn Dhanak: So just going to share my desktop.
Yes, that's great.
And believe it's up in your apple in the upper left corner.
Or you can hit Command key and a spacebar.
And
You tried to searching for activity monitor and your little
Lynn Dhanak: In this instance preference. You guys can see it right
We can
Lynn Dhanak: See
All right, it's not going to find it in there. So click on your desktop and hit the Command key and your spacebar.
Lynn Dhanak: It desktop screen saver. No.
No, just click on your desktop, your stories just so you're not in System Preferences anymore.
Lynn Dhanak: Any another to take it out of system preferences.
Yeah.
Lynn Dhanak: Okay.
Pick up the Command key which is the four circle swirly and the spacebar.
OK.
And then
Hit type in activity monitor
Ready. There you go. Now this will show you were on the CPU tab. That's your central processing unit. That's how fast your processor is
And you'll see at the bottom that you are a have 81% idle. That means you're using about 20% of your system and 80% is idle. So you have plenty of space. It's 80% usage and only 20% idle.
That's when you want to start thinking, you might need to get a new computer or an upgraded processor or something like that. And if you switch over to the memory tab. If you want to find out. For example, if you're not if you're using all of your memory.
Yours says memory you have eight total gigabytes of memory, you're using five and a half gigabytes. So you have
So two and a half free
Lynn Dhanak: And has a
Lynn Dhanak: Pretty good have two and a half free
I mean you're up at the 75% level. So you're getting there. If, if this. If this seems to be the biggest problem that you're having
Then the first place you might start is to get more memory and your computer. It's also relatively cheap to get memory. You can get you know 64 gigabytes to replace that eight gigabyte chip and your local Apple person can put it in, you know, what is the split
NTS computer. Okay then.
Angie.
Yeah, so if when you have three or four things open and you're working in Word and you're working in a web browser and you're working at zoom and you are up around seven gigabytes used
You might be starting to sell Antioch, or whoever owns the computer, you need some more memory in your computer to see if it'll operate faster, or else they'll make other suggestions for how to make that work faster.
Lynn Dhanak: Colder.
The same thing is true of disk your disk space. If you click on the tab that that's how much hard disk space you have for storage.
The fuller that is there closer, you're getting to needing more active storage.
And, you know, generally speaking, we have tons of gigabytes to spare. But you should look at that, just to see if your usage is
High. This doesn't say your total usage, but
Yeah.
Russell W French: Exactly question then based on that.
Russell W French: Go ahead. Um, what was the title of the item on the task manager that I'm to check to see. She was a 21%
So when you open Task Manager, you will have columns for CPU disk and memory or it might say might say ram all three of those are different things to check. So your processor
Is going like mine goes up and down depending on what's open at the moment. Sometimes my processors 94% used, and that means my computer is doing a lot of stuff at that second
And you have to wait for everything to slow down before you can do the next thing that's why when I open zoom it takes a few seconds.
Or a minute. Sometimes before I can mess around with my browser tabs because Zoom is using all my process or percentage and you'll see a percentage right at the top.
9% yeah hundred it'll go down to 80 and it'll go up to say if you're up.
Russell W French: If not on this machine, it stays. It's just pegged
Yeah, so that just means you're trying to do more than your processor can do all at once.
Russell W French: And
You need a faster processor. So it may be your processor isn't pegged but your memory is an
83. All right, so what get more memory than you currently have a newer computer is going to require more memory to
So that your the setup you get from wherever you look for your computer will have a suggested memory if they have an option to upgrade it and it's cheap 25 bucks 40 bucks difference upgrade to the higher memory. It'll last longer and your computer will work faster.
Russell W French: Okay.
And then your
Myspace is just how much storage, you can always buy external disk space.
You don't have to get a new computer
Just because you're running out of disk space. Just get up plug in USB or, you know, some other outside storage, move your backups and things on to an outside storage and just use your computer for what you need minimally
Russell W French: Yeah, I have a terabyte. So that's how I do that, man.
Yeah, exactly.
Exactly. It's different.
Depending on how many photos and how much music your story. I'm going to stop your screen sharing and I appreciate you doing that. Lynn. Thank you very much.
Lynn Dhanak: My pleasure.
Harold Hale: Well me I have to be going right now because
Harold Hale: I started the webinar, actually.
All right.
Thanks for
chatting with everyone super helpful.
Russell W French: Yeah, thank you.
Alright.
Lynn Dhanak: This has been very helpful.
Yeah, so we have 20 more minutes. And I can stay in chat with people. Um,
If you want to stay, please do. If you haven't thought of the question. That's okay if you have to go, feel free. We know your
Time is valuable, and we want to
Make sure you're spending it well and whatever that means to
You. So if you guys want to share your screen and show me what your system looks like. And we can talk about it or ask questions. So you're more than welcome.
Russell W French: I've been super helpful. I'm going to head out. Thank you.
Monona Wali: Tony really helpful.
Thank you.
Lynn Dhanak: Think I'm going to head out to. It's been really helpful. But I'd like to know where this recordings going to live because I missed the first part.
Okay, so when it's done from zoom. We always put all of our recordings on the emergency remote teaching guide which is the same place, and typically on the homepage.
We have in the right column, the recent recordings, and if it's a recording about zoom. It'll go over here on the zoom page. And it's always available in our au at YouTube channel.
That's where we host all of our videos. Um, and you can always come here and look for academic technology Antioch University.
Lynn Dhanak: You guys have been amazing through this. I just want to say, I can't tell you how much I've appreciated. Well, I felt supported
Lynn Dhanak: I haven't come typically because it doesn't usually work with my time. But, you know, just to know that I've got all these videos and you guys are doing amazingly thorough job. So I want to say a very big shout out can't tell you how much I appreciate it.
Thank you. And if you have suggestions for times when it's better for you. I know we have lots of people who teach after the usual business hours Harold does
practice sessions in the evening. Sometimes if those are valuable to you let us know at at at Antioch at edu and will continue offering them like we've been doing 7pm Eastern
Eastern Time 7pm Pacific Time 10 at 10pm Eastern time, maybe once a month and you can come and ask any question. It doesn't have to be one specific session so
Send us some feedback on that will be happy to hear
Lynn Dhanak: Cool. Well, thanks so much. Bye.
very welcome.
Peter Palmiotto: Thanks Bonnie's Peter. I'm heading out to appreciate it very helpful.
Great. I'm going to stop the recording. But I'll stay on for questions and and tell everybody.
