Distance Education Weekly Tips

Scheduling and Zoom tools you can use to to make your classes more engaging -- Week One

--Remember to schedule your Zoom classes and office hours through Blackboard so students can easily find them, https://suffolku.blackboard.com/.

--Students can raise their hand (blue hand available in participants window) and unmute themselves to actively engage in class.

--You can turn-off private (1:1) chat and still allow students to ask questions visible ONLY to the host (that's you), https://suffolk.zoom.us/

 

Toolbar Features & Zoom Polling -- Week Two

--Pause your recording during breaks so you'll only have one recording for your class. For example, if you send students to breakout rooms, pause the recording so you won't have footage of the empty main session.

--Questions added to the same poll will appear consecutively on screen, so students will be able to see all questions. Create separate polls to have students answer questions one at a time.

--Access and use annotations or whiteboard to write and share notes while using screen-share. You can even use the annotation tools when using screen-share with programs like Word, PowerPoint, and OneDrive.

 

Zoom Waiting Rooms & Attendance Reports -- Week Three

-Students cannot see or interact with the other students in a Zoom waiting room. Students can only enter the meeting when you choose to let them in.
 
-The host (you) can send messages to people in the waiting room. (Ex: If you're using a waiting room for your weekly office hours: "Hi Marie, I see you waiting, I'm just finishing up and I'll be with you in a few minutes.")
 
-If you choose to take attendance using Zoom usage reports, download the reports on a regular basis.  Zoom retains reports for twelve months, but you can only enter a search range of one month at a time. 

 

Zoom Recordings & Transcripts -- Week Four

--If you’d like Zoom to automatically transcribe your recordings, be sure to enable this option by going to suffolk.zoom.us and clicking Recording in the Settings menu.  
 
--You’ll have three options when you record your classes: 1. save recordings locally to your computer, 2. save recordings to the cloud, or 3. save both to your computer and the cloud. We recommend that you save them to the cloud so that they will automatically appear on the Blackboard page for your course.  
 
--Disable “Join Before Host” in Settings at suffolk.zoom.us to ensure that students do not enter your meeting before it has started. If you’ve enabled automatic recording, this will ensure that you will have a single recording for each class (for example: if a student entered your class early and left, a recording would be created and saved to the cloud).  
 
Bonus Tip: Even if you’ve disabled “Join Before Host” in your settings, you can enable it again when scheduling specific meetings. Allowing students to arrive before a meeting is scheduled to start (for example, a review) could encourage community building.  
 
For more information about sharing and editing your Zoom recordings & transcripts, check out our cheat sheet.
 
We encourage all of you to reach out to your library distance education liaison for more details.  You can also view all of our Zoom cheat sheets.
 
Did you miss last week's Tuesday Tips? No problem -- you can check out all of our distance education weekly tips.

 

Pre-assigning and Managing Breakout Rooms  -- Week Five

--Remember to go to the master settings at  http://suffolk.zoom.us to enable Breakout Rooms and enable the ability to pre-assign breakout rooms (Hint: use ctrl+f to search the Settings page for "Breakout Rooms" to easily find the setting).

 

--If you'll be using the same discussion groups in Breakout Rooms all semester, pre-assign the rooms by choosing Breakout Room Pre-Assign when scheduling or editing a meeting. You can assign them  manually or use a spreadsheet.

 

--Only the meeting's host can create, open, and manage breakout rooms during a meeting; however, your co-host can move to different Breakout Rooms to help students.

 

 

Polls, Backgrounds, and Muting -- Week Six
 
--Zoom polls are now automatically enabled. You now have the ability to add polls to your meetings without changing your Master Settings at suffolk.zoom.us.  
 
--Add different Suffolk backgrounds when teaching to mix things up! We'll be adding more to that file -- so do keep an eye on it for new backgrounds to use.
 
--Use this simple keystroke to mute all participants quickly and easily. Mac: ⌘Cmd+Ctrl+M or PC: Alt+M

 

Downloading the Desktop App, Breakout Room Glitches, and Keystrokes for Screen Sharing. -- Week Seven
 
--If you will be working from your office computer in Sargeant Hall or haven’t been using Zoom a lot at home, remember to download the Zoom App at http://suffolk.zoom.us. 
 
 
--A Zoom software glitch has been preventing pre-assigned breakout rooms from being saved in most cases. Consider creating breakout rooms during your class meetings or assigning your TA the Host role so he/she can create them while you conduct class. 
 
--To share your screen quickly without using your mouse, press  Alt+Shift+S (Mac: ⌘Cmd+Shift+S). To pause/resume a screen share, type Alt+T (Mac: ⌘Cmd+Shift+T).

 

Spotlight Video, Pin Video, and Custom Gallery -- Week Eight

  1. Spotlight Video:you can now spotlight up to 9 videos, which will make those speakers the primary speakers for all attendees. This is great for when you have a panel of speakers.
  2. Pin Video:You can now also pin up to 9 videos. This means those speakers will only be in primary view for you, not your participants. This is perfect for when you want to see students who are on call, but the rest of the class doesn't need to.
  3. Custom Gallery View:I've saved the best for last! Now, you can rearrange your students' video windows when you are using Gallery View. This means you can rearrange the videos almost any way you'd like (you can still only see 49 videos on a single screen, though), whether that's alphabetical, students on call, or a different configuration.
Remember to install the latest updatefor Zoom to use these features.

 

 

Updating Zoom and New Features -- Week Nine

 

  1. Updating the Zoom Desktop App: We've made a cheat sheet (attached to this email) to help walk you through updating Zoom. Updates are not automatic, so make sure to check periodically to see if you are running the latest version of Zoom. 
  2. Self-select Breakout Room: This is a feature coming with the new update on Monday, 9/21. You will be able to create breakout rooms with the option for participants to self-select which breakout room they would like to join. If enabled, participants can move freely between breakout rooms, without needing the host’s help. This is not a feature you have to enable. Once the update is complete, we'll be putting together a cheat sheet explaining this option.
  3. Customized View in Meeting: Last week we sent you tips on customizing what you and your students see during a meeting. Remember to update Zoom to use these features.