Getting Started with Zoom: Ten Settings Every Teacher Should Review Before Their First Zoom with Students

in ,

Zoom Training

Last week Monday our school provided teaching training for Zoom, but because we were already practicing physical distance, our Zoom training would no longer be taking place at school. Rather, it was taking place online. On Zoom.

That’s definitely one way to learn how to use a program. I am usually all for skipping the manual and just clicking all the buttons to see what they do. But for some reason, this time, I was very much aware that I needed to be a little more intentional with this. Understanding the settings of Zoom was no longer just to satisfy my preference for the app, if I wanted it in Dark Mode, or where I wanted my files to save. My knowledge and level of comfort with the app directly impacted the safety of my students in this digital space.

After a few training sessions, I bounced out. It’s not how I learn and it was going way too slow. So I found a few friends who also wanted to learn about Zoom and we set up a room taking turns clicking all the things. And learning.

Zoom Settings

To save you some time, here are ten settings that every teacher should review before their first Zoom with students. All of these settings can be found on the Zoom website. If you are using the desktop, mobile or tablet platform, the layout will probably look different.

1. Start meetings with videos off.

Turning these settings off will make sure that videos will be turned off at the beginning of every Zoom you host. Once in the Zoom session, you and the participants will be able to turn on their video if needed. This may be helpful for participants who may be logging in using data instead of WiFi get into the Zoom quicker.

2. Don’t let them join before you.

If you leave this on, anyone with your Zoom link can get into the video conference room before you. Imagine it being like your classroom: Would you let your students go in there without you whenever they want for who knows how long? Maybe. I still would turn this setting off.

3. Have them sign in to Zoom.

Since all of our students all have email accounts through Google, they can sign in to Zoom with the same credentials. Turning on the authentication setting will link their display names in the chat with their email addresses. This may not be super crucial for elementary students, but when you have 8th graders who rename themselves to…. yeah. You get the point. It can be helpful to know who the account belongs to.

4. Mute them.

Don’t be afraid to mute them, they can always unmute themselves later. Turning this on will automatically mute every participant upon entry. If you leave this off, it is highly likely you will hear feedback due to loud volumes on someone’s laptop/device and tracking that one participant might take a little bit.

5. Disable the private chat.

This is basically the classroom equivalent of letting students text each other during class without you knowing. Or the old school version: passing notes in class under the table. Co-Hosts and Hosts will still have the ability to private message individual participants but will prevent them from privately messaging each other.

6. Only let the hosts share their screens.

But what if one of your students has this great document they want to share with the whole group? Wouldn’t you want them to be able to share their screen so they everyone can see? Sure. So promote them to a co-host and when they are done, demote them back to a guest. Leaving this on for all participants to share their screens opens up a lot of opportunities to derail your Zoom session. Allowing only the host (& co-hosts) to do this will prevent any surprise images or videos from being displayed in your chat.

7. Let them raise their hands.

Turn on the nonverbal feedback option. It is great. It lets everyone give feedback like “Yes” and “No” and “I need a break”. Hosts and Co-Hosts can also quickly see how many guests are using each type of feedback. You can quickly see how many people are responding “Yes” to your question of the day without having to look and see if everyone is nodding.

8. Do I have your attention?

The attention tracker will throw up an icon next to a participant’s name if they are cruising in another app or looking at something else on their laptop/device when screen sharing is active. So you’ll know if Bobby is really watching you demonstrate how to balance those equations or if he is secretly checking on his Neopet in another tab.

9. Open the waiting room.

This is probably the most important setting to turn on. The waiting room holds any guests who open your Zoom session early until you are ready to open up the chat. Guests in the waiting room cannot chat or see each other, but hosts and co-hosts will be able to see the names of everyone waiting. Individuals can be allowed to enter the chat one at a time, or you can just let them all in. There’s even the option to send a message to everyone in the waiting room. “The chat will start in 3 minutes. Thanks for being here on time.”

10. New phone who dis?

If you have anyone who is joining your Zoom through their phone, you will want to protect their phone number by turning this on. Also, if someone calls in on an iPhone and has renamed their iPhone, they will show up with that name in the chat. Some students have very interesting names for their devices so you may want to rename them once they get in to save them from embarrassment.

So those are the settings that I have been telling everyone to mess around with before they Zoom up with their classes. Have I missed any? Do you agree? Drop some comments below and help some teachers out.

This distance learning stuff is easy, yo. Just gotta practice.