Email Bruce at bboyd@dschool.stanford.edu for tech help and questions.
Things to consider when working from home for the Spring quarter: Internet speed, computer speed, location, lighting, video and audio.
Prepare your computer:
If you haven’t updated and rebooted your computer in a while, this is a good time to get a fresh start.
Once you’ve restarted your computer, take a moment to close any non-essential applications like music services, games, etc before you fire up your Zoom class session.
Check your browser: close excess tabs and update your browser. Each tab takes a chunk of memory, so if you typically have a lot of tabs open in a browser you should close that browser window and open one with just a few tabs. Google instructions on how to save tabs if you want to refer to them later. Update the browser by clicking About from the file menu for Chrome or Firefox and it will automatically start updating. If updating fails, you should re-download and install your browser.
During Zoom calls, you can reduce the load on your computer by minimizing the live video window.
Check your internet connection:
If you have a slow internet connection, check around and shut down any devices that you aren’t using that use your internet in your place. This includes TV’s, cell phones, ipads, secondary computers, etc.
Check with your service provider (Comcast, ATT?) to make sure that the router that supplies your internet connection is fairly new. Complain if necessary! :) Also, you may want to confirm that your router provides both 2.4GHZ and 5GHZ and that they are enabled.
Make sure that your router is not obstructed by metal cabinets, walls, etc from the area you are working in. Or work in the vicinity of your router or connect your computer to a network cable attached to your router.
If none of this helps, consider upgrading your internet connection with your service provider.