Online lessons depend on small practical details: whether the device is charged, whether your handwriting can be read on camera and whether you can speak where you are sitting. This check turns those details into a short checklist and a list of questions for your teacher.
Nothing is uploaded, and nothing is detected about your hardware. You describe your situation and the tool responds.
How do you use it?
- Choose your device: laptop or desktop, tablet or phone.
- Choose how you will show written working: paper shown to the camera or photographed, a tablet or stylus on a shared whiteboard, or typing in chat or a shared document.
- Choose your audio situation: you can use a microphone, you prefer not to, you have no quiet place, or you will study in a public or shared place.
- Optionally press Test my microphone. This asks your browser for permission and stops immediately. You can skip it.
- Tick the checklist as you prepare. Download a text copy if you want to keep it, or press Reset to return to the defaults.
How do you read the result?
The result has two parts. The checklist combines four general items with extra items for your device, your writing method and your audio choice. The questions to discuss with your teacher are for the first minutes of the lesson or for your enquiry.
If you choose no microphone, have no quiet place, choose a public space or decline the microphone test, a non-audio route item is added. It explains that a lesson can run through typed chat and shared working.
Example walk-through
The tool opens with a laptop, paper working and a microphone. That gives nine checklist items: charge the device, open the link ten minutes early, have pen, paper and questions ready, check the lighting, check the camera and screen sharing, test that handwriting is readable in a photo, use dark ink and write larger, use headphones, and do a sound check with the teacher.
Now change it to a phone, typed working and a public place. The list grows to eleven.
The phone adds advice to put it on a stand and ask whether a larger screen is preferred. Typed working adds advice on writing fractions and powers clearly, for example 3/4 and x^2.
The public place adds a reminder not to assume a library allows calls and to check its rules first. A non-audio route item is added as well.
The questions grow from five to seven: one about speaking aloud in a shared space and one about whether a phone is enough for the subject.
Finally, press the microphone test and decline the permission. The page confirms that is fine and keeps the non-audio route available, so you can still take part.
What are the assumptions and limits?
- It is a practical guide only. It does not test connection speed or identify hardware.
- It cannot confirm that any venue, including a library or study centre, allows video calls. Check the venue.
- The apps and links used in a lesson are arranged with the teacher, so ask which one applies.
- Ticks are saved on this device only.
Which lessons explain the choices?
For the bigger question of whether online study suits the task, read decide whether online support fits the actual learning task. The guide to how online one-to-one tuition works explains the steps from enquiry to trial.
On setup, see check device and call permission before arranging a lesson, prepare offline practice for restricted hours and discuss realistic lesson times with the teacher. For working and privacy, see show mathematical working using available tools, check audio and privacy before a call and verify independent study-space rules rather than assume video calls are allowed.
For access needs, see use keyboard and reduced-motion learning controls, choosing a usable explanation format for online tuition and enquiring about tuition with accessibility requirements. For privacy, see prepare privacy and communication questions before class, understand what public learning tools do not collect and involve a parent or guardian in a minor’s arrangements.
You can ask about online one-to-one Physics tuition or the subject you need once your setup is ready. More tools are in the learning tools directory.