Every day, millions of people across the world use Zoom to communicate. And now, many of them are using it to teach. The video conferencing platform has become an invaluable tool for distance learning — both in colleges and universities, but also in high schools and primary schools. Of course, switching from face-to-face to online teaching poses some major challenges.
Online learning can be defined as the course of study that is accessible via the Internet. Many students are choosing to enroll in online classes due to advantages such as flexible scheduling, convenience, and a greater variety of course offerings to choose from.
There are many advantages of zoom classes for students and teachers. In this article, we have broken down how to use zoom effectively in the classroom. We’ve covered a range of topics including using annotations, managing online breakout rooms, using polling, and more
In this tutorial, we will share recommended devices and settings for using Zoom for teaching. We’ll also cover some helpful tips for teaching remotely including how to use the whiteboard feature and ways to foster engagement with your students. For those new to Zoom or those with limited experience, there are things you can do before your online class starts to ensure it runs smoothly.
Tips for Teaching Online in Zoom
The following recommendations can help get you started holding an online class in Zoom.
Prepare for your online class.
Install Zoom on your computer.
Install the Zoom client (opens new window) on your PC or Mac, and/or add the Zoom app to your mobile device.
Schedule your class session(s) in UVACollab.
Follow the steps in How do I schedule online meetings? to set up your class in your UVACollab site.
Set up your space.
When teaching online, you should work in a physical space that is conducive to holding class. To make your virtual classroom more engaging:
- Work in a quiet room, with minimal background noise and distractions.
- Connect a webcam to your computer so you can be visible to your students during class.
- Use a good microphone. A noise-cancelling headset is recommended.
Get familiar with Zoom.
Join a practice session.
Before class, join a Zoom test session (opens new window) to test your audio and webcam, and familiarize yourself with the chat and other controls.
Tip: When you enable your webcam in the test session, you might check that no distracting items appear on camera in the background.
Learn about accessibility features.
If you use a keyboard only, screen reader, or other assistive technology when navigating the web, learn about Zoom’s accessibility features and keyboard shortcuts (opens new window).
Make sure accessibility accommodations are in place.
Review UVA’s Zoom Accessibility Best Practices (opens new window) for tips to make your virtual classroom accessible to all students.
If a student has a special need for online courses, such as a requirement for live captioning, coordinate with the Student Disability Access Center (opens new window) to ensure that everything is set up for the student to participate.
Enable the Mute Participants option.
When creating your meeting for class, select the option Mute participants upon entry so students’ microphones will be disabled by default when they join the room.
For steps to enable this option, see How do I schedule online meetings?
Tip: Muting the microphone of anyone who is not speaking is a best practice to avoid background noise and allow students to stay focused on the lecture or discussion.
Test your audio and video.
Join your meeting a few minutes before class to check that your audio and video are working.
Prepare a lesson plan.
Create a document or slide with an agenda or list of topics for each class that you can share with students.
For steps to share documents and slides in Zoom, see the Zoom Help: Sharing your screen (opens new window).
Record your meeting.
Recording your class meeting to the cloud will allow students to review the discussion later. This will help students who could not attend the class or who want to reinforce their understanding of the lesson.
Recommended: Whenever possible, record multiple short segments of lectures (rather than a single, full-length recording) so that Zoom recordings will process more quickly.
Important: Give students the option to opt out of a recorded session, in which case they can select Leave Meeting and view the recording later.
Tip: Consider following the steps to enable the audio transcript feature on your Zoom account before starting a recorded meeting. Students can then use a transcript to easily search for and skip to specific points in a video.
Zoom’s Tips and Tricks
The following tips were copied from Zoom’s Tips and Tricks: Teachers Educating on Zoom (PDF).
Tips for Virtual Lessons
- Watch the In Meeting Controls (Basic) video from Zoom to become familiar with some fundamental meeting controls.
- For your first class, set aside some time to introduce your students to Zoom and ensure that they’re able to connect their audio and video.
- Give an agenda or plan for each class by screen sharing a document or slide at the beginning of class. This gives students a clear idea of how the class will progress, what will be covered, and the activities they’ll engage in. For steps to share documents and slides in Zoom, see the Zoom Help: Sharing your screen (opens new window).
- Discuss online etiquette and expectations of the students in your first virtual class and periodically revisit the topics. You may also refer students to UVACollab’s Tips for Attending Class in Zoom.
- Utilize the whiteboard or annotate a shared document and let your students engage as well. For steps to use the whiteboard and annotation tools, see the Zoom Help: Sharing a whiteboard (opens new window) and Using annotation tools (opens new window).
Suggested uses of the annotation tools:- Try whiteboarding math problems.
- Have a student use annotation to highlight key ideas in a document you’re sharing.
- Take time to promote questions, comments, and reactions from your class. Give a minute to allow your students to utilize reactions, write their questions in chat, or be unmuted to ask their questions live. For more information about these features, see the Zoom Help: Meeting reactions (opens new window), In-Meeting Chat (opens new window), and Push to Talk (opens new window).
- Divide into smaller groups for a discussion on a certain topic. You can use Zoom’s Breakout Room feature to either pre-assign or auto-assign students into groups for a short period of time so they may discuss things together. For steps to use Breakout Rooms, see the Zoom Help: Managing Video Breakout Rooms (opens new window)
- Have students be the presenter and share projects with the class. This allows your students to show what they’re working on while practicing their presentation skills. It also allows students to hear from one another. You can allow a student to present by making them a co-host during the meeting. See the Using Co-Host in a Meeting section on the Zoom Help page: Enabling and Adding a Co-Host (opens new window).
Tips for Teaching Over Video
- Look at the camera to create eye contact with your students. This helps to create a more personal connection while teaching over video.
- Take a second to check chat or your student’s video (if on camera) to check-in with your students and get feedback.
- Speak as if you’re face-to-face with the class while ensuring you’re at the appropriate distance from the microphone for the best audio experience.
- When delivering a presentation, sharing images, files or video, give your students a moment to open or take in what you’ve shared.
- Embrace the pause. Take a moment after the end of your comments and allow for students to engage before continuing on.
3 tips to make Zoom feel like the classroom
Use the chat feature
Using the chat feature on Zoom was one of the most common tips from students on campus.
On Zoom, there is a feature for students to communicate with one another as the meeting is taking place. Students can use the feature to speak to all of the students at once, or they can use the chat to specifically speak to one student separately.
“It really creates more of a classroom environment when students are able to talk personally to one another. I love it when students send funny chats because it reminds me of what it is like in the actual classroom,” BYU senior Lexi Larsen said.
Keep your camera turned on
Face to face interaction was lost when schools transitioned to online learning, and Zoom allows students to choose whether or not they want to show their camera on the screen for others to see.
“My teachers are starting to require that we turn on our cameras so they know we are engaged in class,” BYU student Lacey Gardner said. “Some students don’t like showing their camera, but I see why the teachers have us do it. Showing your face on camera makes it more personal, and makes students feel more responsible to be a part of class discussions.”
Don’t be afraid to ask/answer questions
Many students feel more comfortable asking or answering questions during in-person instruction. As students are not all together, it can be easy for individuals to sit back and let others participate rather than share their own insights.
“One of the biggest things I have learned from online class is to not be afraid to ask or answer questions during class. It can be intimidating to go off mute and share with the class, but when students speak up it makes class feel more interactive like it would be in person,” BYU sophomore Leighton Davis said.
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
Zoom is a reliable video conferencing platform for educators. It has many advantages for both teachers and students. If you want to create a remote classroom that works, you need to know how to use Zoom effectively.
It is safe to say that at this point most educators are familiar with Zoom. Some of you may have even used the platform in your professional life before the pandemic, or been using it for years at home. But using Zoom as an educator is quite different from using it for a professional meeting or family gathering.