Advanced
Features in
Zoom Q&A
Emily Weerts (she/her/hers)
emily@wildlysupportive.com
Wildy Supportive
Questions & Answers from the Wildly Supportive Zoom Overview Trainings
Updated regularly - email Emily at: emily@wildlysupportive.com if you have other Zoom questions to add!
Link to video of the Advanced Features in Zoom Training: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H3PmQZ_xj1o&feature=youtu.be
For links to all the Wildly Supportive Zoom resources, visit:
List of Topics Covered:
CREDITS: This presentation template was created by Slidesgo, including icons by Flaticon, and infographics & images by Freepik and illustrations by Stories
Question:
How do we get to Gallery View?
Answer:
From a computer, the Gallery/ Speaker view button should be in the upper right corner of your Zoom window. Click to switch.
Click here to switch between Gallery and Speaker View.
More on Active Speaker vs. Gallery View layout: https://support.zoom.us/hc/en-us/articles/201362403-Active-Speaker-Video-Layout-
Question:
Are there any discounts for education or nonprofit Zoom accounts?
Answer:
Question:
Showing things close up on Zoom… like a live snake!
Answer:
I suggest having a second
camera or document camera.
If I want to show something close up, I use my computer’s built in web camera for the view of my face, and mount a separate web camera facing down to my desk.
Recommended webcams here: https://www.nytimes.com/wirecutter/reviews/the-best-webcams/
To switch between cameras, click on the ^ next to the Video settings and select camera you want to use.
Question:
How do you turn off the damn ding? (The doorbell sound when participants join).
Answer:
Go into the Zoom settings (login to www.zoom.us go to My Account and then Settings) and change the settings:
You can have the sounds totally off or just heard by host/ co-hosts. If it’s totally silent, you might forget people in the waiting room.
Question:
If someone is a co-host (named in advance) do they go in the waiting room?
Answer:
You can’t easily name a co-host in advance with a basic Pro account that isn’t linked to other accounts (and that’s the set up I recommend for most folks).
So, in that case, everyone except the Host enters through the Waiting Room, and once your fabulous co-hosts comes in the meeting, you make them a co-host. Most of my co-host planning happens in advance over text or email.
Question:
If you’re in a large zoom room and someone's dog is barking, is there a quick way to find them so you can mute them or do I just have to swipe through the gallery to look for the green box?
Answer:
I have two suggestions for this:
Check this box when scheduling a large meeting to cut down on errant background noise possibilities.
Question:
Does Gallery View put all participants in the same order on everyone’s screens?
Answer:
No. The order in everyone’s screen is slightly different (the active speaker, or spotlighted video, and hosts & co-hosts, along with you as the participant will usually be in the first few thumbnails but that order is different for everyone.
Question:
When you record a Zoom session, how does the view change?
Answer:
There are several recording layouts for your recording in Settings → Recordings. More details on how your video will come out based on what views you select can be found here: https://support.zoom.us/hc/en-us/articles/360025561091-Recording-Layouts
Question:
Are Polls and Breakout Rooms available on the free account?
Answer:
Breakout Rooms are available in the Free accounts, but Polling is only available on licensed accounts.
Remember that the free account lets you have unlimited 1-on-1 meetings, but times out after 40 minutes if there are more than 2 people on a call.
The Pro Account ($15 per month/ $150 per year) lets you do Polls.
Question:
How would you set up a Buzzer feature for Trivia in Zoom?
Answer:
Sound delays over different people’s internet connections is going to make true “buzzing” difficult (and unfair). �I would recommend using the Reactions or the Nonverbal Feedback feature.
Have a co-host monitor the participant list to see who “reacts” first. Or set up your Trivia in more of a Pub Quiz format (where folks don’t buzz in).
More Trivia Resources:
Question:
What is the advantage to having participants register in Zoom?
Answer:
Having registration (either in Zoom or another system) helps keep your sessions secure (although it’s not foolproof, & I always recommend having a Waiting Room enabled).
Zoom’s registration is pretty simple and allows you to collect email addresses for everyone who registered. It also lets you easily send the meeting reminder with the link to all the registrants.
Question:
How do you access the email address for folks who registered? �And how can you customize the email that is sent to registrants?
Answer:
To get the email addresses of registrants, go to zoom.us → My account → Account Management → Reports → Meetings
From there, you can pull up the Registration Reports for meetings that have registration.
Answer:
To customize the email sent to registrants, to go zoom.us → My account → Meetings. Open the corresponding Meeting and scroll down to the Email Settings tab. Click on Edit next to Confirmation Email to Registrants.
Other Registration Platforms include:
More on Registration:
I use Eventbrite for sessions that are paid (or by donation) and my biggest piece of advice is to use what works for you (or what you are already familiar with).
Question:
How can you add daily or weekly meetings?
Answer:
Question:
How do you put Branding (Logos & Message) in the Waiting Room?
Answer:
You can customize the title, logo, and description in the Waiting Room from your account settings. Unfortunately, this is for all your meetings with Waiting Rooms (and not unique to each meeting). More info: https://support.zoom.us/hc/en-us/articles/115000332726-Waiting-Room#h_57118d8b-1498-4c4c-a520-f8a5815930a7
Question:
Is Q&A the same as chat?
Answer:
Sort of. Kind of. Not really… Q&A is a feature in Webinars not Meetings. If there is Q&A on a Zoom session, you are in a Webinar, not a Meeting. More on Q&A here: https://support.zoom.us/hc/en-us/articles/203686015-Getting-Started-with-Question-Answer
There is also a limited chat feature in Webinars: https://support.zoom.us/hc/en-us/articles/205761999-Using-webinar-chat
Question:
Is the Webinar feature included in the Pro Account pricing?
Even having webinars for up to 100 participants costs extra, just for the webinar format:
Question:
Can you link Pro accounts?
Answer:
You can link Pro accounts, but I generally strongly advise against it (unless you are required to for your organization). It is really probably better (from a functionality standpoint) to share a Pro account with a few folks (by registering one and literally sharing the password with trusted folks).
More on linking accounts: https://support.zoom.us/hc/en-us/articles/360042068932-Linking-accounts-to-an-organization
Question:
How do you get people to actually show up to Zoom events?
Answer:
If you figure this out, tell me… ha!
Seriously though, attendance at free events was bad in person. It’s safe to expect about 25% of participants showing up to most free things.
Some things I’ve found that help with attendance:
Question:
During annotation, can you tell who drew each thing?
Answer:
Unfortunately no.
Question:
Can any image be annotated on?
Answer:
Yep, if Annotation is turned on, anything you share (including when you are sharing screens like my slide deck) is fair game for being annotated on.
Question:
Can you limit who annotates?
Answer:
Probably not as much as you want. In Settings → Annotation you can turn annotation off or on. By default, “on” means everyone can annotate. From there, you can select “Only the user who is sharing can annotate” but that’s it.
Question:
Can you annotate from an iPad?
Answer:
Yep. More on how to do that here: https://support.zoom.us/hc/en-us/articles/115005706806-Using-annotation-tools-on-a-shared-screen-or-whiteboard
Question:
How do you recommend optimizing screen sharing for video?
Answer:
Ideally, have your video playing off your local computer (not over YouTube, over the internet, or from another server) - that said, YouTube/Vimeo usually works fine from decent internet connections.
From the screen sharing menu, make sure “Optimize for Full-Screen Video Clip” is selected.
Question:
Can you pre-assign folks to Breakout Rooms?
Answer:
Not easily (unless all participants are joining from linked accounts, like if everyone in your meeting all worked for the same big org). This is where pre-planning and having a trusted co-hosting team really helps.
If you know in advance who is coming (ex: all your students), make a list of who should be in which group (literally a list like on a document or piece of paper), then set the rooms up that way.
If you want attendees to select which rooms to go to, establish a short-hand and use the Rename feature (“Rename yourself with a “3” in front of your name if you want to go into the Hand Stitching group”)
Question:
What can I do to make Breakout Rooms run more smoothly?
Answer:
Mostly, this is all about setting clear expectations and probably having co-hosts or at least volunteer facilitators in each room.
When making the list of Breakout Rooms, I make an extra room (just click “Add another room”) so I can use it if I need it. I pretty much never make concrete plans for needing a certain number of rooms for a certain number of participants (because I rarely know how many people to expect). Some people will definitely bail from a call as soon as you ask them to go to a Breakout Room.
Question:
Can you record what is going on in Breakout Rooms?
Answer:
Yes, if you are allowing recording, participants can record locally (to their computers) in the main meeting and the breakout rooms.
The easiest way to get the videos from the breakout rooms is to assign a co-host (or volunteer recorder) to each room and use the “Broadcast message to all rooms” feature to remind them to record. Ideally, you should have the contact info for each of the folks who recorded video on their computers to get the files after the session.
Question:
Can each Breakout Room share a whiteboard?
Answer:
Yes, as long as you have enabled participants to share a whiteboard (or have a co-host in each room if the permissions are set to hosts only)
More info on sharing screens in Breakout Rooms here: https://blogs.otago.ac.nz/zoom/breakout-sessions/how-to-use-a-whiteboard-in-a-breakout-room/
**Generally, if you are planning on hosting sessions with Breakout Rooms, I recommend watching the video linked at: www.wildlysupportive.com/zoom
Question:
Whenever the hosts shares a screen and stops showing a screen, the layout changes (like Gallery View, Chat & Participants, etc.). Help!?
Answer:
Yep. It’s super annoying. I am here to validate your frustration. That’s just how Zoom works.
This will only help you as an individual (you can remind your participants, but can’t do it for them) but Zoom automatically makes things go Full Screen and I like to Exit Full Screen - it should be a view option at the top of the screen. You’ll have to do this each time it swtiches back and forth.
Question:
Not a question but a recommendation for Captioning:
Answer:
Check out the National Center on Accessible Education Materials (AEM)/CAST. They offer free webinars. This one is on captioning: http://aem.cast.org/about/events/2020/05/workflows-creating-accessible-video.html
AEM has done a ton of webinars. All are awesome. All about accessibility. Check out: "The Webinar on Webinars" with Andy Goodman: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JOPywESEaCk
Question:
Do you have suggestions for alternate whiteboard applications?
Answer:
Check out Miro: https://miro.com/ and MURAL: https://www.mural.co/
There is also an app for iPhones & iPads called Simple Whitebaord: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/simple-whiteboard-by-qrayon/id1327954704
Question:
Can you share your Spotify Timer Playlists?
Answer:
Sure! They can be found here:
Thank you!
Presented by Emily Weerts - feel free to email Emily if you have any questions!:
All Zoom resources shared at: www.wildlysupportive.com/zoom
Link to video of the Advanced Features in Zoom Training: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H3PmQZ_xj1o&feature=youtu.be
If you would like to chat with Emily about Zoom (or anything else), feel free to make an appointment here: https://calendly.com/eweerts