What is it?
Zoom is a video conferencing tool, which can also be used for webinars, meeting and chat. It is a way to share videos live, with specific people.
Some features
You can schedule a class in Zoom for a specific date/time and send the invitation to students. Or in our case, we will sometimes create the activity in myAMES and students access it there.
Screen sharing – you can click the Share Screen icon to share your screen with students. E.g. to go through a plan of what will be covered at the start of the session. More on Screen Sharing.
Whiteboard – you can show a whiteboard to students (and if allowed, they can write on it too). E.g. you could show words on your whiteboard and ask a student to circle the word that is spelt incorrectly and write the correct spelling beside it. More on your whiteboard.
Chat – a teacher can send messages to individuals or to the whole class. You can set who students can chat with or disable this feature. E.g. if you hosted a short video about pets you could ask, ‘who has a pet’ and students share their answer as text based chat. (There are also ways to do text based discussion in myAMES).
Record – Zoom is mostly used for live video conferencing, but videos can be recorded. Consider the privacy of all involved and that saved videos may be large file sizes. E.g. a short video about pets could be recorded, compressed and then uploaded for other classes in myAMES.
Getting set up
Zoom provides detailed information on getting started.
You can download Zoom to your own computer if you wish. To download Zoom on an AMES computer you will need to do it within the network, not remotely. You can also access Zoom via a web browser.
The bar at the bottom of Zoom show current options (as above) eg you will need to Start video and Join audio.
This bar updates (as shown above). See the Mute option when audio is on. Leave meeting on the right.
When you are set up it is a good idea to do a test with a colleague. Make sure that you test your audio. You may be using a microphone that is a built in to your computer, a separate microphone or one that is on headphones. To hear audio you may be listening via a built in speaker or using headphones.
Doing a test is also a good chance to try any features that you may use, so that you are familiar with them.
General tips
- Join the class a few minutes early to check the connection and get ready.
- Look into the camera when you wish to make eye contact and speak in the same way that you would in class.
- Give students time to take in information, include pauses.
- Talk to students about etiquette online and suggest some class rules around using Zoom so that everyone is clearer on what is expected of them.
- Try headphones with a built-in microphone, if you want to cut down background noise.
- Set your meeting to mute students’ microphones automatically at the start of the Zoom session if you wish to avoid background noise.
