Zoom Basics

Much like an in-person class, it is important to set expectations for student participation.

• Close out all applications you won’t be using during the session. Applications like your email can be both visually and verbally distracting.
• Use a headset with a microphone. This will help your voice to be clear when you are speaking and reduce any noise in your environment.
• When you schedule the class, you can select “Mute participants upon entry”. Students will be able to unmute themselves when they are ready to speak.
• If background noise occurs during your class, click on participants and “Mute All”.

Keep in mind that Zoom requires a lot of bandwidth to operate and your attendees will have different levels of connectivity.

• You may want to ask attendees to turn off their video when they are not speaking. This will reduce bandwidth significantly.
• If you are concerned about engagement, another option would be to have attendees rotate their video, for instance, people whose last name start with A-G will have their video on for the first 15 minutes of class, H-N for the next 15 minutes, and so on.
• The third option is to start with video and if you notice issues, you can ask participants to turn off their video for a while.

Keep in mind that Zoom requires a lot of bandwidth to operate and your attendees will have different levels of connectivity.

• A room advocate is a huge help when monitoring chat. They can watch the chat box and relay the question to the instructor at the appropriate time.
• If you do not have a room advocate, you can open the chat panel while you are sharing your screen. The chat panel will not interfere with your screen sharing. In other words, the participants will not see your chat panel, only their own chat panel.
• In Zoom, participants can chat with “Everyone” or privately. You can block private chatting in the meeting room by clicking on the three dots next to the chat window and choosing “Everyone Publicly”. This may help to reduce off topic conversations.

• Hosts
  • Spotlight a speaker so all participants see the selected person. Do this by clicking on the three dots on the participant video and choose spotlight. Three people are required in the room to use Spotlight.
• Participants
  • Pin a video to focus on a specific speaker. This will only affect your view. Others will not see who you pinned.
  • Click on the three dots on the video you wish to pin. Select Pin.

A room advocate or assistant is extremely helpful when teaching. An advocate could be a colleague or teaching assistant. Their role is to manage any issues that might arise so the instructor can focus on instruction.

A room advocate can assist in the following ways:

• Manage chat and files. An advocate can relay questions to the instructor or answer them in the chat without interrupting the session.
• Troubleshoot by muting attendees, turning off video, and troubleshooting student issues with sound and video.
• Manage the Waiting Room
• Take attendance
• Watch for nonverbal feedback including raised hands.

Much like an in-person class, it is important to set expectations for student participation.

• Do you want them to have their video on? If so, they should test their video capability. Keep in mind that if their internet is slow they may not be able to use video. How should they communicate this to you?
• How should they ask a questions? Do you want them to use the chat? Should they raise their hand and wait for you to call on them?
• How would you like students to use the chat box? To ask questions, share feedback?

• Once you have scheduled your meeting, log into Zoom at https://mdacc.zoom.us
• Go to “Meetings”, select a meeting, and scroll to the bottom of the page.
• Select “Add”
  
  
• A window will pop-up. You will need to:
  • Add a title
  • Type in your question
  • Type in your answer choices. There is an option for “Single Choice” or “Multiple Choice”. “Multiple Choice” allows participants to choose multiple answers.
• Choose “Save”.
• If you would like to add another question, select “Add a Question” and create a new question for that poll.





There is a maximum number of 26 polls allowed in a single meeting.

To launch a poll in a live Zoom meeting, start your meeting as a host.

1. Select the “Polls” icon in the controls at the bottom of your screen.
2. Select the poll you would like to launch.
3. Select “Launch Poll”. The participants in the meeting will now see the poll and be able to respond to the question. The host will be able to see the results live.
4. To stop the poll, select “End Poll”.
5. Select “Share Results” to show the results to participants. Select “Stop Sharing” to remove the results from participants' screens.

• Choose “Breakout Room pre-assign” while scheduling your meeting or edit your meeting to choose this option.
• Select “Create Rooms” and add breakout rooms to your meeting.
• You can now add participants to rooms with their email address or upload a CSV file.

• Start the Zoom meeting as host.
• Click “Breakout Rooms”. This is located in your controls at the bottom of your screen under “More”.
• Select the number of breakout rooms you need.
• Choose how to assign your participants to breakout rooms under the “Options” button.
  • “Automatically” splits your participants up evenly into each room automatically.
  • “Manually” allows you to choose which participants you would like in each breakout room.
• Click “Create breakout rooms”. Your rooms will be created but will not start until you launch them.
• If you chose "manually", you will need to go to each breakout room you created, select “Assign” next to the Breakout Room and manually check the boxes next to the participant names to assign them to a room. You will need to repeat these steps for each participant

After creating the breakout rooms, select “Options”. You can choose to:

• “Move all participants into breakout rooms automatically” – This will automatically move participants to breakout rooms. If this is not selected, participants will need to agree to “Join” the breakout room.
• “Allow participants to return to the main session at any time” – Checking this option allows participants to leave the breakout room at any time.
• “Breakout rooms close automatically after x minutes” – This option closes out breakout rooms at a time specified by the host.
• “Notify me when the time is up” – This option notified the host when the breakout room time is up.
• “Countdown after closing breakout rooms” – This option shows a countdown timer for participants in a breakout room letting them know that the session will end in so many seconds.

• Hosts can launch the breakout room from the controls menu at the bottom of your screen.
• Once the breakout rooms have started, participants will be asked to join a session or if you selected “Move all participants into breakout rooms automatically” they will be moved to their respective rooms.
• Hosts can move in and out of breakout rooms and close all rooms when they are ready for everyone to return to the main session.
• Hosts can also “Broadcast a message to all” breakout rooms.