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Zoom

What is ZOOM?

Zoom is a web conferencing system with full audio, video and screen sharing capabilities. It can be used on Windows, Mac, and Linux computer platforms, as well as on iOS and Android mobile devices.

Ideas for incorporating web conferencing in courses

Breakout Rooms: Direct students to work on specific questions/case study with small groups using Zoom breakout rooms, and then bring everyone back with a full class discussion. Whiteboard and Annotation options are available in Zoom to share breakout room activity with the whole group.

Guest Speaker: Invite a guest speaker to one of your classes. If the speaker approves, you can record the session and share the recording with students.

Office Hours or Virtual Review Sessions: Zoom is a great tool for office hours. Set up virtual review sessions before a major exam or assignment is due. Record this session for those students who cannot make it.

How to access

Login to Zoom
  • Click Sign in and use your UNO NetID and associated password (same as email, Canvas, Box, etc.)
  • Faculty and staff will have a Zoom Pro License and students receive a FREE Basic license when they log in. Feature Differences
  • The Zoom Download Center can be used to download the client applications, Outlook plugins and mobile versions of Zoom.  
  • Only the meeting organizer needs to have a Zoom account.  Anyone can be invited and join the session without having to create a zoom account!

The Basics – One Minute Videos

Setting up a Meeting: There are various ways you can set up meetings in Zoom.  For users of Outlook, installing the Zoom Plugin for Microsoft Outlook lets you add a zoom meeting right to your Outlook meeting.  Invitation information can also be copy/pasted directly into an email message. Beginning with the Summer 2018 term, there will be a Zoom option directly in Canvas which allows instructors to create Zoom meetings and have them added to the Syllabus, To Do list, and course calendar.

Beyond the Basics of Zoom

Manage Settings: For additional features like Polling, Annotation, and Breakout Rooms, these options need to be turned on through the “Manage Settings” area in Zoom.  
Video - Zoom Manage Settings
Article - My Meeting Settings

Chat: The in-meeting chat allows you to send chat messages to other users within a meeting. You can send a private message to an individual user or you can send a message to an entire group. As the host, you can choose who the participants can chat with or to disable chat entirely.
Article - In-Meeting Chat

Polling: The polling feature for meetings allows you to create multiple choice polling questions for your meetings. You will be able to launch the poll during your meeting and gather the responses from your attendees. You also have the ability to download a report of polling after the meeting.
Video - Zoom Polls
Article - Polling For Meetings

Annotation: Meeting participants can annotate on a shared screen as a viewer. The tools available will vary based on the version of the Zoom desktop client or mobile app and your device type, but participants can draw and highlight on the screenshare.
Video - Zoom Annotation
Article - Annotation As A Viewer

Whiteboard: The whiteboard feature will allow you to share a whiteboard that you and other participants (if allowed) can annotate on.
Video - Whiteboard For Online Tutoring With Zoom 

Breakout Rooms: Breakout Rooms allow you to split your Zoom meeting in up to 50 separate sessions. The meeting host can choose to split the participants of the meeting into these separate sessions automatically or manually, and can switch between sessions at any time.
Video - Zoom Video Breakout Rooms
Video + Article - Getting Started With Breakout Rooms
Article - Participating In Breakout Rooms

Recording: Meeting hosts with Pro accounts can record Zoom sessions to their local computer or to the cloud.  For cloud recordings an email will be sent to you when the recording it ready.  Currently cloud recordings will self-delete 30 days after the recording date.  Downloaded recordings can be uploaded to ilos for longer storage and easy access.
Video - Recording A Zoom Meeting

Virtual Backgrounds: The virtual background feature allows you to display an image as your background during a Zoom Meeting.
Video - Zoom Video Communications Virtual Background
Video - Virtual Background
Video + Article - Virtual Background

Best Practices for using Web Conferencing Sites

Best Practices for Teaching with Web Conferencing - New York University

10 Guidelines for Running Synchronous Web Teaching Sessions - Inside Higher Ed

Web Conferencing in UDL Framework - UDL On Campus

Research on Using Web Conferencing

Pedagogical Benefits - The University of Queensland

Best Practices for Engaging Users in a Web Conferencing Environment (PDF file) - 120th ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

Get More Help

The Zoom Help Center contains documentation to assist with all of your zoom questions.  Zoom also offers weekly and pre-recorded training through their Training site.  

The UNO Digital Learning team also provides various training opportunities which can be browsed at https://UNODigitalLearning.eventbrite.com.  You can also contact members of the digital learning team individually for assistance. 

Kristin Bradley (kristinbradley@unomaha.edu)
Erin King (erinking@unomaha.edu)
Rick Murch-Shafer (rmurchshafer@unomaha.edu)