DLE Weekly Update: Most Asked Questions on ZOOM Classroom tool

Posted on Saturday, March 21st, 2020

How many ways are there for setting up a Zoom meeting?

You have three ways to schedule a Zoom meeting:

• From within a course in Brightspace – ideal for when you give lectures to your students. Go to your Brightspace course and access the Zoom Classroom link from under the Tools menu. After you schedule the meeting, the link to the new meeting will automatically show up in your students’ course calendar. They will have access to the meeting on the date and time you chose in the meeting’s settings. Note that your students won’t need to sign up for a Zoom account, as they will automatically have access to your Zoom classroom, as participants.
• Through the website, outside your Brightspace course, by signing into the Algonquin College Zoom Portal – recommended for small groups’ meetings, when the participants don’t have Brightspace accounts and/or you don’t want your students to join the meeting by mistake. Also, you may choose to use this Zoom portal for your open office hours, specially when you need all your students, from multiple classes, to have access to this room.
• Using the ZOOM app on your smart phone

How do I share my screen?

Click on the Share icon, down at the bottom of the screen. You may share your desktop (or choose which desktop, if you have more than one), share a whiteboard that allows you and your students to collaborate, or share one specific app (which you should have it open before you start your Zoom meeting). If you have all the info you need to share with your students in one app (Power Point, World, Excel, etc), then sharing an app instead of the desktop, will avoid the notifications that you usually get from other applications (new emails, new chat messages, etc) to pop up while sharing. But if you need to switch from an application, to a video and then to a website, etc, then Desktop sharing is the way to go. Watch this video for more details on running Zoom and screen sharing.

How do I add a virtual background?

For those days when your office does not look the best, but you need to turn on your camera while giving your lectures using Zoom, once you have the meeting open, click on the chevron beside the Start Video icon and select the Choose a Virtual Background link. Use one of the existing images, or upload your personal ones, by clicking on Add Image. Click here for more information on setting a different background.

How do I record my lecture and make it available on Brightspace?

We recommend opening your own Zoom meeting – find your personal meeting ID by logging in to your own Zoom account. Under the Profile menu, you will find your Personal Meeting ID .

1. 1. Start your session by going to Host a meeting menu, on the right hand side, up at the top. You can start the meeting with video ON, OFF, or only screen sharing. We may choose to bookmark this address for easy access, next time when you need to record. The link will look like this: https://algonquincollege.zoom.us/s/YourOwnMeetingID.
   2. Test your microphone and video settings.
   3. Decide if you need to share your desktop or only one application. Open only the websites or the applications you need to share, before you start sharing and recording.
   4. Don’t forget to click on the Record button. We recommend that you record in the Zoom Cloud – if done through the Zoom Classroom in Brightspace, the link will appear automatically and your students will have access to the recording from the Zoom Classroom, under the Tools menu. If your Zoom Meeting was hosted outside Brightspace and your need to share the link with the recording with your students, you may post it under the course Content or include it in a Brightspace Announcement.

How do I use breakout rooms?

Watch this video for details on this.

How do I make sure I have a recording of each breakout room?

My students have group presentations and I have split them in breakout rooms. How do I make sure I have a recording of each breakout room? Set up the ZOOM meeting to record on your computer and NOT in the cloud. You will need to have one student from each room record the breakout room session. You can designate one person in each Breakout Room to record locally and then share that file with you after the meeting. Multiple students can record locally if allowed by the host.

Is there any way to start a Zoom classroom with pre-assigned break out rooms?

Yes, but ONLY if students have Zoom accounts (through https://zoom.us), and they are logged into their account in order to be assigned to the breakout rooms correctly. Follow these instructions on pre-assigning participants to breakout rooms.

Note: Students must use their Algonquin email address when they create the Zoom Basic accounts.

Here are some recommendations to get your students in the habit of signing into Zoom:

• Inform students that they will need to create a Zoom account and log into Zoom to access future meetings.
• Edit upcoming meetings so that Only authenticated users can access them (it’s a checkbox when editing the meeting).
• Give students an extra 5-10 minutes to get into your next meeting – they will inevitably run into difficulties and some may not have created an account.
• The main thing is the communication piece. We’d recommend something like this: “To join this session, please see the Getting Started section of this Library guide, to create a free Zoom Basic account using your college email address. Accounts will be used to make group work easier in each session. You will not be able to access future class meetings without a Zoom account.

How do I restrict a Zoom calendar event to a specific course section?

When I am scheduling Zoom meetings in my combined/merged courses, the events show up in ALL students’ calendars. How do I restrict a Zoom calendar event to a specific course section?

Go to your course calendar and find the Zoom occurrence you just created. Left click on it and select Edit. Scroll down to Attendees and change the drop down selection to the desired course section. Note that ALL students will still be able to join the meetings, by going to Tools/Zoom Classroom, but not having the notifications in their calendar, will make it easier for them to manage the upcoming events.

How do I make sure only students from one particular course section view ONLY their own Zoom meeting link?

I am working with a combined course and I really need to make sure students are not seeing ALL Zoom meetings scheduled, by going to Tools/Zoom Classroom. How do I make sure only students from one particular course section view ONLY their own Zoom meeting link?

• • Set up a Zoom meeting outside Brightspace by going to the Algonquin Zoom Portal
  • Copy the link and password for the invitation to that Zoom meeting
  • Create a restricted announcement in your combined/merged course (that will be seen only by that particular section, and be sent as an email only to the students from the section)

OR

• Create restricted course modules and upload an item that will contain only the Zoom link that you will be using for one particular section (for instance, you will create one module called Zoom 011, and include a link to their Zoom session, then Zoom 012, and include their own link, etc.

Check the Zoom Security and Privacy Guidelines for Faculty Members file for recommendations on how to configure your Zoom account, how to conduct a meeting, and how to record and share online class sessions.