AMT Practice Period Tech Guide
from Jeffrey Bramhall CAMT  

Here is a quick guide to getting the most out of your AMT Practice Period, from a technology standpoint. Hopefully, this is helpful!

Room Set Up

For practice periods, it’s helpful to have your room set up so that your camera can capture both you and your client so the instructor can give you the best possible feedback.

Ideally, that means having the camera aiming from a position higher than the table, pointed at an angle to the table, and capturing from the table to the floor as shown in the image below.

You don’t need a tripod, though: just put your camera or laptop on top of a dresser or shelf.

Lighting

The more, the better! In practice periods, the ideal in-room lighting will probably be very different from your preferred therapeutic environment. This is especially important if you are reliant on a computer’s built-in camera as they tend to be less sensitive.

Digital/Blurred Backgrounds

Many of us have used Zoom’s background features to obscure or blur our environments. However, this is not what we want during the practice period! In case you set this ages ago and have forgotten how to reset it, here’s how to fix that on the desktop application.

Click the carat (^) next to the video button at the bottom of the screen. When clicked, you’ll see the options to either blur or choose a virtual background. If you’re blurred, just uncheck that box and it will return to normal. If you’ve got a virtual background, click on “Choose Virtual Background” and select “None” in the dialog that pops up.

Multiple Devices

More than likely, your best quality camera is the one on your phone. As such, it is helpful to have the camera setup on a tripod as shown above (or positioned on a stand or shelf).

If you have a Mac and an iPhone, you can set your camera up as a camera option using the Continuity Camera feature. See instructions on how to set that up here.

Within the Zoom application on your computer, you can toggle between the two views using the carat next to the video button at the bottom of your screen (shown below).

By selecting the cameras I have an option to show either of these views:

If you do not have a Mac and an iPhone, or if Apple Continuity Camera is not an option for you, you may still be able to use your smartphone as a second camera by connecting to the Zoom meeting from both devices.

In this case, first join from your computer while logged into Zoom and then join using your mobile device. You may have to log out of Zoom on your mobile device to make this work. 

If you are able to join from multiple devices, it is important to choose to join on your phone with No Audio (see the options below). This will prevent the dreaded feedback and echo loop that has plagued us all since early 2020.

Hopefully this guide was helpful and you can go on to have a great and fruitful practice period!