Going live with HOA

Once my Hangout On Air (HOA) is scheduled (I explain how I do that here) and have embedded it in my Google Site (I explain how to do that here), I am ready to go live! Having everything ready to go before the morning is the key to success. My mornings are very busy. I usually have a meeting at 8 a.m., receive students at 8:45 a.m., start the morning show by 9 a.m. and then off to my next meeting! Here's the process for how we "go live" with HOA:



1. Go to Google+ and select Events from the dropdown menu.

2. Select the event on the Events page. 

3. Click start on today's morning show to start broadcasting. 

4. This screen will open.

The "Invite guests" window is something I do not use because of how our school watches on a Google Site (explained here.) This option allows other to participate in your show. We'll go into more detail in a later post on how we include other participants. I just select the "skip" button. 

5. This is the "pre-production" view. 

Until I click the green "start broadcast" button on the bottom, my audience will not see me. In this shot, my profile photo is visible because I have turned off the camera. If the camera is on and I have a camera available, I am able to see what the camera is viewing on the screen. 

6. Once I am ready to "go live" I click on the "Start broadcast" button. Here's what the screen looks like once I have started my broadcast. 

The green "Start broadcast" button turns red and changes to "Stop broadcast." A yellow "LIVE" box appears in the top right-hand corner. 

7. Any HOA can record up to 8 hours; however, we only use about 15 minutes. Once "Stop broadcast" is selected, the HOA is over and cannot be started again. 

The yellow "LIVE" and red "Stop broadcast" are both replaced with OFF AIR once the broadcast is over. 

For a a step-by-step video on how to do this, please click here.