A Synchronous set-up for Home-based session

With the circuit breaker in 2020, many face-to-face sessions was turned into Home-based learning. As an educator, it was figuring out how to set up a 'portable' work station. It. has been a learning experience and I have to say, I had fun troubleshooting what works for me. 

Recently, I attended a number of online workshops to learn about how others set-up for home-based sessions. It has been enriching as there are so many options out there.  

I wished I have a fix work station so I only have to set up once, and the clean up at the end of each day will be minimal. BUT I DON'T so its a daily set-up/tear-down on either my dining table or I used Q study table. 

This is my set up with Q  being at home, at times he would like to join the lesson while other times his aim to be the one in front of the computer. We are at our dinning table. 

My Equipment
1. WIFI
2. Laptop near an electrical power source
3. A ring light. (This is my second unit, the first bought is a not-so-expensive one from Lazada that gave me a headache when its on for too long.)
4. A tall tin to rest the ring light on
5. A Lego stand to rest the phone. I like the Lego stand compared to a tripod because I found it easy to adjust the height without changing the camera angle at all. All i have to do is to add more lego or remove them. 
6. A placement mat. I used an A3 painted canvas which is the pink item. This way, an A4 drawing can fit in my frame both landscape or portrait. 
7. Art material for the session

8. Back-ups: Ipad and old mobile phone with camera working. 

Cables to connect to the laptop

ZOOM is the main platform I use as I find the functions such as spotlight, pin video and the breakout room oh so useful. Of course, the screen share function has been wonderful!! One other plus point on Zoom is the audio. 

I have two platform accounts: Account 01 is the main and Account 02 is for the phone camera. 
Account 01: I use it to be communicate with the learners, screen share as well as check on the learners as they do the work (with the Pin Video function). 
Account 02: I used it as my demonstration. When i am doing so, I turned on the Spotlight.

When I had one zoom account, I used Reflector to mirror screen function between the phone and the laptop via a cable. This was, the laptop mirrors whatever image from the iPhone lens. However as my computer screen is only so wide, it was a challenged to have so many windows open. It was much for me to toggle between so many different windows.