Learning with Zoom

1. System requirements for using Zoom
2. Test your internet connection by joining a test meeting
3. Joining a Zoom meeting
4. Optimize your WiFi and router
5. Adding and sharing your pronouns
6. How to record presentations from home using Zoom
7. Video meeting etiquette tips from Zoom
8. IT Services' equipment recommendations
9. Set up strategies for online presenting
10. Tips for presenting PowerPoints online

Download: Learning with Zoom

What is Zoom?

Zoom is a web conferencing tool. It allows instructors to easily convne online meetings with students, chat with or without video enabled, and deliver presentations while maintaining a good quality connection among all participants.

What can I do on Zoom?

• Attend live course sessions
• Engage with your instructor through chat, audio, and video features
• Participate in Breakout Rooms and polls
• Host unlimited meetings with up to 300 participants
• Hold 24-hour maximum group meetings
• Record meetings
• Screen share and more

What do I need?

• Computer/laptop/tablet/smartphone with a stable, high-speed internet connection (iOS and Android apps available)
• Headphones, arbuds, and/or speakers
• Microphone (a separate microphone can be better than your device's built-in one)
• Web camera (optional, preferred for face-to-face connection)

Getting oriented on Zoom

Bottom bar of a Zoom screen from left to right the buttons are:

• Mute/Unmute your audio. To avoid background noise, keep yourself muted unless you've been invited to speak
• Start/Stop Video turns your video on and off.
• As a host, Security allows you to "lock" the room and control participant functions.
• Click to open the Participants window to see a list of participants and to rename yourself and change your profile picture.
  • You can also add your pronouns in the Profile section.
• Chat opens the meeting's chat box.
• Share Screen lets you share your desktop or just one window.
• Reactions will show on your thumbnail

Download: Breakout rooms

What are breakout rooms?

Breakout Rooms allow participants to meet in smaller groups within the main Zoom meeting. McGill instructors may use this feature to assign students into groups for a short period of time so that they can hold a discussion. To learn about how to create and manage Breakout Rooms in your own meetings, consult the Managing Breakout Rooms resource article from the Zoom Help Center.

How do I join a breakout room?

• When the host (e.g., instructor or TA) initiates the Breakout Rooms, you'll get a notification inviting you to join your Breakout Room.
• Click the Join Breakout Room pop-up notification to enter.

How do I leave a breakout room?

• When the host ends the Breakout Rooms, you'll get a notification to either return to the main meeting immediately or after 60 seconds.
• Click Leave Breakout Room to return to the main meeting.

Download: Managing Zoom fatigue

Zoom fatigue is a real phenomenon where we feel fatigue from all our screen-time interactions.

We can feel fatigued, emotionally drained, and have irritated eyes after video meetings. Some reasons for this are:

• Our brains have to work harder to process non-verbal cues.
• Delays and glitches can make the people we are interacting with seem less friendly or approachable and it can feel unnaturally quiet when everyone is muted.
• We can see ourselves, so we are always "on."
• We become hyper-aware of our appearance and feel the intensity of all eyes being on us.

Strategies

1. Take breaks: Schedule screen time breaks in your day. It helps to get outside and avoid back-to-back meetings as much as possible.
2. Know that feeling self-conscious is normal: Zoom allows you to hide self-view and, when possible, turn your camera off.
3. Keep it brief: You can say no to video meetings that seem unnecessary and opt for text or audio meetings. Having an agenda can help keep on task and shorten screen times.
4. Avoid multi-tasking during meetings: Our cognitive ability is strained enough by attending meetings. Make things easier for yourself by focusing only on the meeting at hand.
5. Protect your eyes: You can reduce eye strain by wearing blue light blocking glasses and following the 20-20-20 rule which suggests that after every twenty minutes of screen time, you should look at an object twenty feet away for twenty seconds.
6. Keep it interesting: Environment affects workflow, so switch up your work space every so often.
7. Be kind to yourself: Remember that it is okay to feel overwhelmed and tired from virtual meetings. Check in with yourself and talk with friends and family as often as you can.

 Download: 10 tips for using Zoom

Whether for classes with instructors or small group meetings with peers, these ten tips can help create a positive experience.

1. Join on time

   • Aim to join your Zoom meetings a few minutes early so that the instructor can start class at the scheduled time.

2. Mute yourself

   • Keep your microphone on mute to limit background noise during the meeting for all participants.

3. Keep your camera at eye-level

   • If you're joining a meeting with your video enabled, try to position the camera at eye-level with a plain background and avoid backlighting. You might also consider using a virtual background to personalize your meeting experience or for privacy reasons. Once your camera is on, don't forget that other participants can see you until you turn it off or leave the meeting.

4. Limit distractions

   • Limit your own distractions by closing unnecessary browser tabs, silencing your cellphone, and avoiding multi-tasking. Limit distractions to others by reducing movement or a background. Business

5. Add your pronouns

   • Consider including your preferred pronouns so that other participants know how to refer to you. You can do this by clicking Profile and then Edit. If you're a teaching assistant, you might want to add "(TA)" after your name so the instructor and students can easily identify you from the participants list.

6. Come prepared

   • Prepare for your class by completing homework, readings, assignments, or review beforehand.

7. Be present

   • Pay attention and keep focused by taking notes by hand, if possible, and by using the many interactive features available in Zoom, e.g., chat, reactions.

8. Raise your hand

   • Have a question? Use the Raise Hand button to signal to the meeting host that you would like to speak and get added to the spears list. This button is found in the Participants tab.

9. Communicate respectfully

   • Keep communication respectful to ensure a positive learning environment for all and follow the instructor's guidelines for the use of Chat and other features like Reactions.

10. Don’t stress

    • Be prepared to deal with the occasional technical issue. Check out some tips from IT Services about how to improve your internet connection, and know that pausing to troubleshoot is totally okay.