Zoom has a variety of tools that you can use during your live classes. This article will cover how to access these tools in Zoom and use them in your class.
Zoom toolbar:
The Zoom toolbar is where you will access the tools available during your live classes. The unmute and video buttons are the two you will use most often along with the share screen button.
Participants
The participant window allows you to see if anyone is in your waiting room. They will remain in the waiting room until you admit them to the live class. You can choose to pop out the participant window to put on a different screen to monitor. You can see if a student has their microphone or camera on or off. It's recommended to pop your participant window out to see who is or is not in class. This is also an easy way to grab attendance to mark in Canvas.
When students are in your class you can hover over their name and the more button will appear. The more button allows you to chat directly to the student, stop their video, pin a student's video, spotlight the video, and give permission for the student to record the class locally to their device. It is best practice not to give the students the ability to record the class to their device because the class is automatically recorded to be published on Canvas for their viewing. You can also return the student to the waiting room if they are being disruptive. This tab also allows you to remove a student from class. Removing a student from your Zoom class does not permit them to rejoin the class until the next day. Only use this option under extreme circumstances. You can also report the students under the more tab, as well.
Share Screen
Sharing your screen allows you to share content with your students. Begin by selecting the Share Screen button. A pop-up box will appear for you to select what you wish to share with your students. You have the option to share your desktop, Whiteboard, or a specific website. If you are sharing a video with your class, be sure to check the share sound box so students can hear the video audio on their devices.
When you select your screen you can share a PowerPoint or video. If you share anything with sound, be sure the Share Sound box is checked before you share your screen. Sharing the Whiteboard allows you to use it like a Whiteboard in a brick-and-mortar classroom.
Once you have shared your screen, your tools to write/type on the screen will become available. These tools are only available when you are sharing your screen. The annotation tools will not automatically display, you'll need to select it each time you're screen sharing.
It is important to note that Zoom is set to automatically record what is shared on the screen. Make sure that you are not sharing personal or student information.
Chat
Chat in zoom allows you to send messages or links to students while you are in class with them. You can limit who students can send chats to. It's best practice to set chat up where students can only send messages to the teacher (aka host). The chat box does pop open to where you can put it on a different screen to monitor students sending you direct messages.
Breakout Rooms
To use breakout rooms click the Breakout Rooms button at the bottom of your navigation bar. From there, a popup will appear for you to designate how many breakout rooms you want and if you want to auto-assign, manually assign, or allow students to select their breakout room. Once you have chosen your settings, click create.
Once you have auto-assigned students to breakout rooms, you can open the rooms and it will automatically send students to their respective breakout room. If you have not auto-assigned students to a breakout room and are allowing students to choose a room, you can open the breakout rooms and students will be able to see the rooms available to join.
The breakout room manager allows you to see who is in what breakout room. You can broadcast a message to all rooms by clicking the broadcast message. To close rooms, click the close all rooms button. This will allow you to see the time length of the warning message that the breakout room is closing and whether to send students back to the main room or end the zoom meeting altogether.
Reactions
Reactions allow you and your student to react to what is happening in the classroom. Students can raise their virtual hand to let you know that they have a question. Students can also react to instruction with different emojis.
Polls
Polls allow you to create in-class quizzes or polls to grab a quick piece of data on how your students are doing with the current content. Begin by clicking the Polls button.
From there a box will appear asking you what type of quiz/poll you want to create.
Once you select the type of poll/quiz you want to create, click Next. You will be directed to the Zoom website to create the poll/quiz. Select the Create button to begin.
You can then begin to add questions to your poll/quiz and name the poll/quiz to be able to use it again in a different Zoom session.
The Advanced Polling option allows you to create different types of questions to be used live in class.
To become more familiar with the tools available to you in Zoom, start a new Zoom session and try them out!