Zoom Features During a Live Session
Zoom Whiteboard
The Zoom Whiteboard feature allows you to draw diagrams and images to enhance your workshop. This video teaches you how to access and use the Zoom Whiteboard.
Here are some practices our facilitators do on Klatch that you can do on Zoom's Whiteboard:
- 1. Draw a 2x2 matrix that seeks to answer a question (e.g., "what do we believe is the answer to poverty" with one axis being government influence & another being community influence). Have everyone write their name where they believe they fall and then call on different individuals to explain. This is a great way to foster discussion.
- 2. Take notes as learners are talking and place each comment on a sticky note. You can even have a scale, matrix, or other groupings to move the sticky notes around.
- 3. After a workshop finishes its session review, ask students to speak about their most memorable learning moments or to record them in the chat. Then ask volunteers to draw illustrations and type the different essential points on the whiteboard while the participants make suggestions. Watching the words and visuals emerge is enjoyable and exciting.
- 4. Include a diagram, chart, picture, or blueprint (relevant to your material) after a presentation, and ask your students to annotate or label the various components to help them remember what they heard.
Zoom's Whiteboard allows you and your students to draw and write together so that you can exchange ideas.
This video demonstrates how to use the annotation feature to collaborate with students.
Zoom Polls
Zoom allows you to create polls, so you can receive feedback in real-time, introduce a topic, or have a creative interactive discussion based on the poll.
To discover how to build polls for your workshop, watch this video.
You can use polls for various activities. Some of our favorites at Klatch include:
- Polling your learners based on opinions
- E.g., If you are facilitating a workshop on web design and you are holding a demonstration of a website build, you may ask for students' input as to where they think the header should be placed on the homepage. You can then create a poll to see what most of your learners believe is the best option.
- Seeing how much your learners already know
- E.g., "How much do you already know on X topic" (veteran, etc.) – this can provide real-time feedback to you to help modify.
- Quizzing students to keep them engaged and to evaluate their learning. You can learn how to create quizzes by watching this video.
- E.g., Once you have finished teaching your students about the basics of python, you can give a quiz to evaluate their learning. For instance, you can use multiple-choice or open-ended questions and ask students what the output of a given line of code is.
- Gauging confidence in the subject you just taught.
- E.g., If you just did a breakout session on how to do a pivot table and you have a larger group - you might want to poll them on how confident they are about creating a pivot table with a few multiple-choice options to determine where to go next.
Chats and Reactions
Zoom has a chat and reaction feature that allows you to communicate with your students and gain feedback without disrupting your workshop. You can use this video to learn how to use Zoom's chat and reactions feature.
Here are different ways you can use the Zoom chat and reactions:
1. Instruct learners to raise their hands in the chat when they want to speak
2. Have students use emojis to express their feelings about a question, statement, topic, etc., posed by the facilitator.
3. Use the chat to write down important points in your workshop that your students can return to later.
If you want to learn how to enable and disable the chat feature, watch the linked video
You can also share content other than text through the chat feature, such as videos and document files. If you want to send more varied content through Zoom chats, watch the linked video.
Screen Share
Zoom's screen share feature allows facilitators and students to share what is currently on their screens with other individuals in the meeting room. For example, you can enable others to view your entire desktop screen, a single window page, or a Zoom Whiteboard. The video shows you how to share your screen on Zoom.
To share video clips, you also need to share your computer sound. See how to accomplish it in the video linked.
Zoom also gives you the option to annotate a shared screen. This feature can help you make notes and diagrams that enhance your lessons. See how to do this in the video linked.
Pinning and Spotlighting
Zoom has a function called Pin Video that lets you magnify and center a particular user's video feed. In this case, the Zoom desktop client's gallery display is modified to hide other users so you can concentrate on a single user.
Breakout Rooms
Breakout rooms are an essential tool you need to use to make your course interactive.
They allow you to put your learners into groups to interact and perform activities together. Breakout rooms are already enabled for our Klatch facilitators. For instructions on how to set up breakout rooms, view the video attached.
Breakout Room Pre-Assign
Sometimes, you may want to keep students in the same breakout rooms as in the last session. For example, you might be doing an activity that requires your students to work in the same groups for multiple sessions. Watch the video attached to pre-assign breakout rooms before your workshop.
Virtual Background
Your background needs to look nice so that your workshop will come off as more professional. Zoom lets you add a virtual background if you are not satisfied with your current one.
While there are many fun backgrounds that you can choose from, we advise that you use a background that is:
- Not too distracting
- Relevant to the workshop
This video demonstrates how to select a virtual backdrop for your session.