Is Zoom Good for Teaching

Zoom has become an integral part of our lives in 2020, and a tool that we have all had to familiarize ourselves with. But is Zoom a good format for teaching, or just something we have had to adjust to as learning and work have moved online? Many teachers have been propelled into using it and are now expected to be proficient in the platform.

Zoom ia popular video-conferencing tool used by educators to facilitate live, synchronous class events and discussions, as well as collaborative learning activities. While Zoom can be useful for scheduling meetings and delivering lectures or presentations, it comes with several drawbacks and limitations.

It’s only been a couple of weeks since the beginning of 2021 and Zoom has already become the most favored platform among teachers and students. It is not only the best option for distance teaching but also ideal for one-on-one tutoring sessions. Zoom is full of unique features that make its usage quite engaging and creative.

As an instructor, Zoom helps keep your class going if you can’t meeting in person. Synchronous online class sessions, where everyone joins a Zoom meeting at a scheduled time, is one way to create engagement when students are remote. Zoom can also support other teaching and learning scenarios. Zoom can be used on laptops, desktops, tablets, smartphones, and even desk phones, giving students many ways to access the class session.

What are Zoom Apps?

Zoom Apps are a new type of in-product integration that lets you bring your favorite apps right into your Zoom Meetings. You can enrich your Zoom experience with apps for whiteboarding, note-taking, classroom games, and more!

We know video meetings have become a big part of how you stay connected across your education community — for lessons, guest speakers, conferences, and everything in between. Zoom Apps can help you make your meetings and class sessions more efficient, engaging, and fun! 

Prepare for your Zoom session

Zoom was designed to be mostly intuitive. Still, it works best if you make some key decisions and become familiar with the platform before inviting students into an online meeting.

Get started

1. Install the software: The desktop version of Zoom will give you the best results and functionality when hosting a meeting. Coach your students to install it as well. Students who plan to join Zoom meetings from a mobile device should also download the Zoom mobile app.
2. Learn more about Zoom:
   1. Get to know your host controls
   2. Read up on running a smooth meeting in Zoom 
   3. Sign up for training (offered by Zoom)
3. Test your audio and video
   1. Visit zoom.us/test to check your internet connection, audio, and video. Do you need a headset? Which camera angle is best?
   2. If multiple meeting attendees are in the same physical space, in order to avoid feedback only one person should join the meeting with audio.
   3. Find your light! Make sure there is a light source (including windows) in front of you, not behind.

Schedule your class sessions

You can schedule Zoom meetings in a few different ways. Zoom can be enabled in your Canvas course navigation, which will be the easiest place for your students to find your meetings. You can schedule a Zoom meeting in your Canvas course and choose recurring meetings when appropriate. This way the URL will remain the same throughout the course. Remember to give your meetings a meaningful name!

If you schedule from within Canvas:

1. Course meetings appear to students within the Canvas course site
2. Course meeting also appear to class participants as events in the Canvas Calendar
3. Cloud recordings of meetings can be made available through the Canvas course site
4. You can separate course meetings from other meetings

Notes:

• By default, the meeting host is the only one who can view and edit details about a meeting. If the host assigns scheduling privileges to another person, that person will then be able to edit and schedule meetings on the host’s behalf.
• Only use your personal meeting ID and personal Zoom URL for unscheduled meetings. These meetings won’t be available in Canvas as mentioned above and cannot be co-hosted.
• If your course cannot use Zoom from within Canvas, you can schedule meetings in the Zoom web portal (harvard.zoom.us) or desktop app (and share the join link with your students) or add Zoom to an Outlook meeting.
• Already have meetings scheduled within your web portal that you need to add to Canvas? You can import Zoom meetings into your Canvas course.
• Requiring your participants to register before joining the meeting will ensure that you will be able to download a list of participants once your meeting has concluded. 

Plan roles for students: don’t host alone

You’ll have a less stressful classroom management experience if you deputize someone else to manage aspects of the online space. By default, your TAs and any other teaching staff will be automatically added as alternative hosts for your meetings, and you can also add co-hosts during your meeting. Consider asking a TA or student to monitor the chat and another to help their peers with technology issues. That way, you can focus on teaching, and you’ll give students some extra digital skills practice.

Encourage a sense of community

The sense of presence will be enhanced when everyone shows their face via their webcam. Consider requiring students to turn on video as a key part of participation, since it is easier to engage with the class if you can see them. Students are more likely to pay attention if they know they’re on camera. Also, coach students on how to toggle to the Gallery view (this is the “Brady Bunch” view where everyone is visible to each other at the same time).

Tips to share with your students:

• Make eye contact with the camera (the camera is the class!)
• Mute mics when you’re not contributing
• Find your light! Make sure there is a light source in front of you, not behind
• Speak in a conversational tone – you won’t need to raise your voice
• Headsets or earbuds can be very useful to improve sound quality
• For more tips, read up on running a smooth meeting in Zoom 

Prepare for technical issues

Host a low-stakes introductory online meeting, with the sole purpose of having everyone log in, troubleshoot technical issues, and get used to the Zoom interface.

• Arrive early enough to work out technical difficulties.
• Have a backup plan in case of unexpected issues or difficulties (i.e. phone conference, using Canvas to facilitate the class, group discussions, or independent learning activities.). Inform students of the backup plan ahead of time so they can remain on task if technical issues occur.
• If using slideware, review how to share your screen with your PowerPoint, Keynote, or Google Slides presentation. If you are using Google Slides Speaker Notes, your notes will open in a new window that is not shared with the Zoom participants. However, meeting participants will be able to see your browser URL and your open tabs.

Create an agenda

Plan for a synchronous online course session just like you would plan for an in-person class. Share your agenda with students ahead of time so students have a clear idea of how the class will progress, what will be covered, and the activities they’ll engage in. Periodically cover online etiquette and expectations of the students, or consider providing a “best practices” document that outlines the expectations.

Record your session

In the case that someone has a technical issue, you may want to offer them future access to the class material. To address this, you can record the class session.

1. Record to the Cloud, rather than on your computer: It’s convenient to record to the cloud, as you can receive both a URL to the video and an interactive transcript. There is no storage quota on Zoom recordings, and recordings of meetings scheduled via Zoom in Canvas appear within a few hours.
2. Start recording in the right layout: The recording layout is based on your view when you begin recording. Therefore, remember to share presentations before recording, and switch to the active speaker view rather than the gallery view (or don’t use your webcam at all), otherwise the video of you will be superimposed over the top right corner in the recording.

Notes:

• If you set your meetings to record automatically, make sure to uncheck the “Enable join before host” option in your meeting’s settings. This will ensure no students join early and start the recording from their screen.
• Let students know you’re going to record the session.
• Offer students the option to mute their audio and/or turn off their video during the recording.
• If meetings are recorded to the cloud and you are using the Canvas integration, you can find the recordings right in Canvas.
• These recordings may be subject to different retention policies than other class session recordings.
• Contact your local academic technology support for additional guidance on where to store the recordings and how to display them to your class.

Engage students

You can use the features of Zoom to guide different types of interactive activities. These activities offer variety to break up a long class session, and they offer different means of expression.

Chat

Using the chat tool can encourage engagement by allowing more students to interact with the live activity, rather than just listening. There are even advantages of Chat over the traditional classroom:

• Get large numbers of responses to a question immediately, and use these responses in real-time or archive them for later. 
• See exactly where students are on a particular issue or debate, informing who to call on next.

Think about how, when, and where you want to allow students to engage in chat. For example, are you comfortable with comments in Chat throughout the class, or only at particular moments? If you have a TA who can filter comments, you might allow students to use Chat continuously; if you don’t, you might encourage its use at discrete times. 

Notes:

• Chat allows posts to the whole class or to one other person.
• You can download the full chat history at the end of class if you want to keep a record.
• Chat can be overwhelming for some students. It is recommended you offer this type of interaction as an option, but do not require it for all students.
• Chat can also be overwhelming for you to monitor while you’re also trying to teach. Have a student or TA to monitor the chat so you can focus on teaching.

Screen annotation

Zoom has basic annotation tools (text box, free form draw/pen, shapes, and highlighter) that you can use to guide students or explain a concept. Access these tools by selecting the Annotate option when you’re sharing your screen.

Note: Screen annotations are not accessible for screen reader users. If you use this feature, be sure to use accessible presentation best practices: say what you’re doing while you’re doing it, e.g., “I’m drawing a big red circle around the login button on this web page.”

Polling

Set up polls in advance and launch them during your class session.

Non-verbal and verbal feedback

Activate the non-verbal feedback feature for your meetings to allow students to communicate with the teaching staff without interrupting the meeting. Routinely check in with students to address any non-verbal feedback. This feature also allows you to manage verbal feedback, as you can instruct students to use the “raise hand” feature to indicate when they’d like to speak. Remember to keep the students muted until you call on them to avoid extraneous background noise.

Breakout rooms

• You can use Zoom’s breakout rooms functionality to have students do group work. As the instructor, you can join breakout rooms, broadcast messages to the breakout rooms, and end the breakout sessions when it is time to regroup.
• Self-select option for breakout rooms: hosts can create breakout rooms with the option for participants to self-select which breakout room they would like to join. If enabled, participants can move freely between breakout rooms, without needing the host’s help. 

Deliver accessible online class sessions

• If you have someone designated to take notes (an accessibility best practice), you can enable closed captions and live transcription. Live transcription transcribes the meeting automatically and allows real-time viewing of the full transcript in the in-meeting side panel. 
• You can even use closed captioning in breakout rooms. 
• If you require live captioning beyond what’s provided through the live transcription feature, Zoom easily integrates with providers such as 3Play Media. Note: the cost of this service is not covered centrally.
• All students may not see or make sense of the visual display as you intend. Get in the habit of describing whatever is happening visually on the screen.

Dive into specific teaching scenarios

Host office hours or small group discussions

• Code review: You can use screen sharing to meet with an individual or group of students to review code. Authorizing remote screen control enables one to take control of the other’s shared application and allows for navigation, text entry, etc on the remote computer. Note that when remote screen control is enabled, your Breakout Room setting will be disabled.
• Collaborative problem solving and brainstorming: Use the shared whiteboard feature to digitally annotate a whiteboard. Allow others in the session to annotate on the same board to share ideas and problem solving methods. A tablet is useful for handwriting.
• Consultation: You can use Zoom’s high-quality audio and video to simply have a discussion with an individual or group of students. Easily share documents or anything else on your computer via screen sharing.
• Control who joins your session: The waiting room allows you to provide a single Zoom session ID and the ability to invite only selected individuals into the discussion. You can also set a custom message in your waiting room that lets students know you will be with them shortly.

Pre-record video

You can present slides to further explain a topic that was only touched upon in class or if several students ask the same question. Sessions can be recorded and shared for later viewing.

Write on the board

If you usually do “boardwork” as part of a class session, you have a number of options.

• Try the Annotation Tools (text box, free form draw/pen, shapes, and highlighter) to guide students or explain a concept.  
• Screen share a camera input so that two cameras can be used at once during a Zoom meeting, with one focused on your writing.
  • You can also join your Zoom meeting on your phone to be able to use its camera as a second camera.
• Use the Whiteboard feature, which works best when used with a tablet and a stylus.
• Create a PowerPoint slide or other simple backdrop file on which you can type notes, and share those notes using Screen Sharing.
• Create a “shared board”–perhaps managed jointly with teaching fellows–using Google Drive.
• Prerecord the illustration as a video, then play it during class.
• As you think about these options, keep in mind whether you need the boards to persist and be distributed to the students after class.

Host an interactive review session

Host online review sessions leading up to a midterm or exam or an entire lecture. Use Zoom’s polling feature to gather feedback on problems or topics to cover and private breakout rooms for discussion. Record the session, and share it for on-demand viewing. We advise muting all remote students and asking a TA to monitor questions in chat.

Pedagogical Considerations for Teaching with Zoom

Zoom allows you to implement many of the same teaching methods that you use in a F2F classroom. Before you jump into learning the in’s and out’s of the Zoom tool, consider what teaching methods you are already using, and then see if Zoom can help facilitate those same methods or similar ones in an online (synchronous) space. Just like a F2F classroom, Zoom allows you to switch back and forth between different types of teaching methods (e.g., lecture, small group discussion, etc.) as many times as you need during a class session.

Do you typically lecture using PowerPoint slides?

• Use Zoom’s screen sharing functionality to present your slides to students while you narrate them. Additionally, if you are using a tablet, you can annotate your slides on the screen for students to see.
• An important part of lecturing in any format is taking breaks to ensure that your students are following along (“conceptual checkpoints”) and/or to provide opportunities for active learning.
• We encourage instructors to take intentional pauses during their lectures and consider asking students to do one of the following: 
  • Polling: After covering a particular concept, provide students with an opportunity for practice and feedback using the Zoom polling feature. Ask a multiple-choice question about the concept to check for student comprehension. Use student response data to inform the remainder of your lecture session.
  • Speed Up/Slow Down: Encourage students to make use of the “speed up” or “slow down” to indicate whether they are following along with lecture. Either yourself or your TA can monitor these responses and adjust accordingly.
  • Thumbs Up/Thumbs Down: Sometimes a simple “if you’re with me, select the thumbs up button” can be a good way to ensure that students are following along.

Do you typically use the whiteboard, chalkboard or document camera when facilitating full group discussion?

• Consider creating a Google Drawing or Google Slides presentation at the start of your session for recording notes on the class discussion. 
• In order to facilitate discussion with groups larger than 8-10 students, consider using Zoom’s “raise hand” or Chat functionality. This will help to ensure that students don’t talk over each other and that everyone has equal chance to participate. 

Do you typically use small group or paired discussion?

• Use Zoom’s breakout room feature to facilitate this type of discussion. Instructors can randomly assign students to breakout rooms or they can selectively group students together (e.g., assigned teams). Faculty members (i.e., the Zoom host) can circulate among the breakout rooms to check-in with students, and students are also able to “request help” from their instructor when needed.
• An important part of making group work or small group discussion effective is providing students with a specific task or deliverable. There are multiple ways to do this in Zoom. 
  • In their breakout rooms, students can use the whiteboard feature to record ideas. Additionally, an instructor could provide a Google Doc (perhaps linked in the group chat box) for all groups to record ideas in. If students are attending a Zoom session via their phone, it will likely be difficult for them to contribute to a Google Doc or white board. Finally, so as to keep students on-task, the instructor can push messages to all breakout rooms at the same time (e.g., “you have 5 mins left to work on this task”). 
  • NOTE: If you are recording your Zoom class session, be aware that if you utilize the breakout room feature, these smaller group discussions may not be recorded.

Additional considerations:

• If you have a TA, consider how you might leverage them to assist with a Zoom session. For example, if you have some students in a classroom and some students participating via Zoom, perhaps you could have the TA monitor the chat box or “raise hands” feature to notify you of questions as they arise. Your TA could take attendance for you or circulate among the breakout rooms, if need be. 
• Consider whether it’s necessary for all students to meet at the same time (synchronous) or whether students could still accomplish the stated learning objectives through some other means. Eberly colleagues are available to help you think through this instructional design challenge. Let us know how we can help!

Helpful Tips for Using Zoom

• If your video quality is poor, turn off your video and rely on your computer audio. You may also use your cell phone (without video) to participate in a Zoom session.
• Ask students to “mute” themselves as a default setting to avoid distracting background noises. Have students “unmute” themselves when they want to talk.
• Ask students to “rename” themselves using their preferred name so that everyone in the Zoom session knows how to refer to them. 
• Use headphones (instructors and students) for all Zoom sessions.
  • If you are having trouble hearing people or being heard, conduct a “test” of your speakers and microphone by clicking on the arrow beside the “mute” button and selecting “Test Microphone and Speakers.” 
• If you plan to use your video, ensure that the room you are in has decent lighting. 
• Build in pauses to allow students time to ask questions, whether by raising their hand or recording their questions in the chat box. 
• Adjust the volume in the classroom so that your students can hear you but you do not hear yourself reverberating backwards.
• If you want to record your Zoom session, please be sure that you click the “record” option at the start of your session. 

Zoom Pros

Zoom has a lot of benefits for businesses. Keep in mind that depending on your plans for using Zoom, some of these may not apply or be relevant to you.

Here are the pros of using Zoom to keep your employees connected:

1. Supports Large Audiences

One of the main advantages is the ability to host very large online conferences. This is ideal for businesses with a lot of employees and not many services can match the sheer number of attendees allowed in a Zoom Room.

This is also great to have when you want to host collaboration events with other businesses or talk with future investors.

However, it isn’t just for employees. If you are using Zoom for Webinars, it can allow up to 10,000 virtual attendees to sign up. This is a very large audience and will be far too much for those just entering the Webinar scene. But the option for growth is definitely there.

2. Stream Your Meetings/Webinar on Facebook

Hosting any type of event is no easy task, and one of the hardest parts is making it easy for attendees to join. However, Zoom has a great way to do this by being able to stream any meeting or webinar on Facebook.

As we all know, Facebook is the most popular social media site on the internet with over 2 billion monthly users. This means that almost everyone will already have a Facebook account set up that is working, and if not, it’s free and easy to do.

This is also a great way to increase your Facebook followers. For example, you can stream a webinar with Zoom on your Facebook Business Page.

3. You Can Use Zoom For Free

While Zoom is a subscription-based service, it does allow you to hold unlimited 40-minute long meetings for no charge. This is great for those looking to trial the service or for new very small businesses that are looking for a free conference service.

This is especially useful during the COVID-19 pandemic. Many small businesses were not prepared to transition to an online work setting. This transition is not only hard to make, but expensive. Using the free version can help you save money and keep things simple.

After all, Zoom is very easy to use.

4. Google Calendar Support

More than 1.2 billion people utilize Google Calendar to help them keep track of their daily activities. Zoom is fully compatible with this service, which will help all of your employees keep track of their next online conference.

Organization and scheduling are some of, if not the most important aspects of hosting an online meeting. Unlike in an office setting where you can regularly interact with people and remind everyone about a meeting, an online meeting relies heavily on everyone remembering it.

Thus, making sure your event is compatible with Google Calendar is a great starting point.

5. Scalable for Small, Medium, and Large Business

If you are a new business owner, odds are you are still trying to find employees and have a plan for your business growth. However, what many first-time business owners forget is that they need to make sure they pick a platform that can handle and sustain the growth.

This is known as being “scalable.”

If you do not pick something scalable, you run the risk of spending a lot more money swapping services. This is not only a financial burden to do, but it can take a lot of resources and man-hours to ensure the platform change is seamless.

Zoom is fully scalable and businesses can upgrade their subscriptions to match their needs at a moment’s notice.

6. Easy to Use

Last, but certainly not least, is how easy the platform is to use. This is critical for many businesses making the transition to online conference calls. This will significantly reduce the number of roadblocks and headaches your business will face.

Everything is very intuitive to use for both the person hosting the call and for everyone attending. This is all thanks to the excellent interface the platform developers have put together.

This makes the platform ideal even for the most non-tech savvy entrepreneurs out there.

Zoom Cons

While Zoom has a lot of great features to offer businesses, there are some downsides. And just like how some of the benefits may not be a factor for you to consider, the cons are no different.

It is very likely that some of these may not affect you in any way depending on your usage.

Here are the cons of using Zoom:

1. Too Many Subscriptions and Add-Ons

Zoom is a subscription-based service that is reasonably priced at starter levels. However, one subscription is not enough.

Most services require an additional subscription (or add-on) that has multiple tiers based on the number of attendees you plan for. While many of the starter plans are fairly priced, the larger plans are questionable.

For example, hosting a webinar that can allow up to 10,000 attendees can cost you several thousand dollars a month.

While this is an extreme example since attendance does not tend to be that large for webinars, you can easily make this money back if you are popular enough. However, the high price can make it very difficult for small businesses to even get started in the first place.

The main problem with this is that you may only need a specific service once or twice throughout the year. The subscriptions are not flexible enough for these needs.

2. Lack of Comment Control

A big part of any online event is the ability for people to comment and message each other in a live chat. While zoom has a lot of customization in this department, it does lack one very important feature: the ability to delete inappropriate comments on the fly.

While Zoom does take inappropriate behavior seriously, it often takes too long to actually do anything about it. This can be devastating for public events because there is often a bad apple among the bunch.

However, this might not be a problem if you plan on just using zoom for meetings and not public events. It is very unlikely that an employee will do anything inappropriate since they will be among their employers.

3. Zoombombing

Zoombombing is a new occurrence on the platform that results in unwanted individuals crashing a conference call. Typically, this will result in loud or inappropriate behavior by someone not affiliated with anyone on the call with the intention to disrupt it for fun.

This bad behavior has mainly been a result of COVID-19. As we all know, the virus has forced most business activity and meetings into the online environment. Unfortunately, many of these businesses or institutions do not understand the importance of security and discretion when it comes to passwords to enter a call.

It is important to note that not all “Zoominvaders” happen as a result of exposed passwords. Hackers have found ways to obtain them so in some cases, the invader is not anyone’s fault.

4. HD Video Is Not the Standard

With the rapid growth of 4k video, HD video quality (1080p) has become the standard on most platforms. Unfortunately, Zoom is not one such platform. It normally supports 720p for the current speaker.

While this will not largely impact a meeting, it has been a sour point for many users that have come to expect 1080p as the bare minimum in 2020. And due to the increased platform usage, they have even temporarily suspended their Group HD service.

It is worth mentioning that some services do have access to 1080p video quality, but you will need to pay more for it.

5. You Need to Download An App

While this might not sound that bad, it is actually a really big flaw. Unlike most other conference platforms, Zoom does not work without downloading an app for your browser. This creates a barrier of entry for employees that can cause employers quite a few headaches.

Many businesses will have a lot of problems with their first meetings because employees forget to actually download the app. This can delay or even force the meeting to be rescheduled as a result. Of course, with proper preparation and awareness, this can be avoided.

But, it is worth pointing out this can be avoided if you choose to stream the meeting on Facebook.

6. Inconsistent Cloud File Sizes

You can store all of your meetings in the cloud depending on your plan. Each plan has different limits on the storage capacity of your cloud. But, actual videos can greatly vary in size.

Typically, these recordings will take up around 1 GB of space. However, there are many instances where these videos can be many times bigger than normal. And this can be quite a problem for those with limited space and poor internet connections.

Of course, things like resolution and length will make a huge difference. There are situations where a video is just much larger than it should be, without explanation.

Conclusion

The rapid adoption of Zoom by schools and universities as an educational tool has not gone unnoticed. In fact, the company saw a surge in demand from colleges who needed to teach online in face of the pandemic. In order to accommodate for this situation, Zoom launched special discounts and even free licenses for all educational institutions. They also increased their capacity overnight to support over 15 million new users signing up every day and all this had a positive impact on their stock price which, consequently, resulted in huge gains for Zoom’s founders, who became billionaires overnight.

Video conferencing tools are the go-to tools for conducting virtual meetings. Many schools are now trying to implement video conferencing software as a teaching tool in their classrooms. Even teachers must use such tools if they want to give online classes. With so many available software out there in the market, it’s hard for an average teacher to figure out which one is best for them or their students.