Zoom Tips

Introduction

Zoom is one of the three communication tools used at the university for synchronous communication. Blackboard Collaborate and Webex are the other tools. On this page, you will learn various tips and tricks to help you navigate zoom and be more effective. UMB CITS has introductory Zoom info here to get you started. Be sure to think about students' needs for interactivity: this video documents some thoughts students have about synchronous virtual classes

Zoom has a wonderful support page that can address a number of questions and concerns. 

Technical support is provided by UMB CITS at 410-706-HELP or help@umaryland.edu and be sure to check their information page

Zoom Video Overview

The following segment was recorded during a zoom overview for Faculty during the Summer, 2020. 

Zoom Overview

Basic Zoom Settings

There are some basic Zoom settings you should be familiar with to ensure you have a successful Zoom session.

Zoom Login Screen

3. Choose Settings on the left-hand navigation menu.

4. Take a few moments to explore all of the settings. Our favorite ones appear in the table below:

 Setting

 Description

This helpful feature allows you to automatically mute others as they enter. This is helpful when lecturing or presenting so you and the rest of the class are not interrupted because of errant audio.

The Personal Meeting ID is a standard room ID that can be easily remembered and used frequently. This is helpful if you are meeting with a lot of people and want one link to remember.

Sound notifications as people enter can be annoying for all. This reduces the notification to hosts and co-hosts or if toggled off, will completely silence.

A really helpful tool to ensure that your participants are engaged - you can use polls to assess learning or introduce fun trivia mental breaks.

A very popular tool not found in Webex or Blackboard Collaborate that allows participants to break into smaller groups which allows greater collaboration. The host can bring the groups back at any time or set an automatic timer.

There are a number of additional features and settings. We encourage you to explore all of the settings and play with the features. You may want to consider allowing students to rename themselves after they have entered the class, in case they are using someone else's device that has the wrong name or they would like to include pronouns. 

Profiles & Pronouns

Aside from faculty resetting their meeting settings to allow students to rename themselves (or which is quickly done on the fly by clicking the Security badge icon in the zoom menu bar between Stop/Start Video and Participants and checking Allow Rename Themselves) , there is a more permanent solution:

In this way, if folks choose always or ask every time, this is set before they even enter a meeting, so it doesn't matter whether the settings for the meeting allow name changes or not. 



The other alternative here is to just enter the pronouns at the end of the Display Name in the profile and that will be how students names are displayed in all meetings.


Personal Room

You can set up a link to your own personal room that you can use whenever you need to have a meeting. To do so:

Breakout Rooms (Pre-Assign)

To pre-assign breakout rooms in Zoom, you can do the following:

Here is starter info on breakout rooms:

Breakout Room (Assign on the fly)

Here are the basic steps:

Note: Your rooms will be created, but will not start automatically. You will need to do that using these steps:

Start the rooms. All participants will be moved to their respective rooms after confirming the prompt to join the breakout room. The host will be left in the main meeting until manually joining one of the rooms. The participants (and the host when manually joining a room) will see the following message shown when joining the breakout room.

Recording

Cloud recording is now available to UMB and is the preferred method, since these include automated closed captions and transcripts and can be viewed with just a link and passcode via the web browser. Nothing to download, nothing to upload. See how here.  

But please keep in mind, UMB CITS has a policy that deletes Zoom Cloud Recordings that are over 365 days old, so your best practice will be to download a completed recording and then upload somewhere else (like Voicethread) for longer term storage and usage in your classes. 

If you use the Blackboard Zoom integration (Zoom Meetings), recordings you create from your sessions for your class will show up automatically for you and students in the Recordings tab:

Downloading Recordings

As of July 2021, you will only be able to keep Zoom Recordings in the Cloud for a period of 365 days. After that 365 day period, your recordings will be automatically send to the Trash Can and permanently deleted after a waiting period of 30-days. 


Otherwise, you can also get to your recordings through umaryland.zoom.us by logging into your account and clicking on the Recordings tab on the left.

You can also record locally to your own computer, but note that this won't include automated captions and transcripts as the cloud recordings do. Also, local recordings have far fewer options for what and how things are recorded than cloud recordings. Zoom has a video and excellent documentation on how to create local recordings . The main thing to note is that your local recording will not fully process until AFTER you end your Zoom session, and you will need to leave your computer and Zoom on after your meeting for some time for the recording to process. If you do open another Zoom session before the recording is fully processed, you will need to wait, again, after that is done for it to resume and complete processing. (Zoom cannot process and finalize your recording when you are in live Zoom session.)

Editing Zoom Recordings

Here are some resources/ideas for editing Zoom recordings:


Live Closed Captions and/or Transcripts

Step 1: Make sure it is on in your Zoom Settings 

 

Step 2: Turn it on during meetings you host:


NOTE: This only makes it possible for participants in the session to turn on their own transcription/captions. The instructor is not able to make it so that everyone sees captions. Each individual must decide for themselves if they want to see captions, and can click on Live Transcript to turn on captions, view a full transcript, or choose their own settings for type and size of captions. For more information, see Zoom's transcription help page


Zoom Recording Captions and Translations

While we at UMB do not have caption translations to other languages, here is a potential workaround if that is something you desire to have:

YouTube now automatically captions and translates captions into multiple languages. Here is a video that describes how it works:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LZz03myFuWA

You can then inform your audience that they can click the CC icon to see captions and the gear wheel icon to choose a language for captions. 


Sharing Zoom Cloud Recordings

Zoom cloud recordings are one of the easiest ways to share recordings with your class. 

There are some settings that you will want to check, regarding whether or not your recordings require a passcode for students to access. 

If you go here: https://umaryland.zoom.us/profile/setting?tab=recording  and log in with your UMID and then look for the setting:


Require passcode to access shared cloud recordings

 

If that is set to On, viewers will need to enter a passcode to view the recording. If you don't want that, set this to No/Off.


Also, this can be done on an individual basis per recording by going to your recordings and clicking the Share icon next to any recording:

https://umaryland.zoom.us/recording


where there are several settings:


Share this cloud recording

If you want to see what the passcode is for any recording with it enabled, go to your recordings (https://umaryland.zoom.us/recording

) and click the Share icon next to any recording, and then click the eyeball icon under Passcode Protection to see the passcode. To change the passcode, click the pencil icon. You can also click to Show the Sharing Information - and also copy that information, which provides both the link and the passcode to paste into an email or announcement to your viewers. 


And here is the general how-to from Zoom on this topic, which explains all the settings for sharing:

https://support.zoom.us/hc/en-us/articles/205347605-Managing-and-sharing-cloud-recordings#h_750e7e94-45e4-415b-a67a-ac8b49e74fa2



share cloud recording settings for Zoom - there are several options to toggle on/off

Additional Help and Support

Zoom has a wonderful support page that can address a number of questions and concerns. 

Technical support is provided by UMB CITS at 410-706-HELP or help@umaryland.edu and be sure to check their information page

In terms of strategizing how to best use Zoom in your classes or practicing using it, the IDEA Team is here to support you.