How To Use Zoom To Watch An Online Course Or Meeting

If you have heard about meetings or online classes being delivered via the Zoom app or website, you might be interested in finding out more.

For your first class or lesson, it’s probably best to just listen to someone else’s session. You can watch a meeting with the video and/or audio off, and then adjust the settings until you feel comfortable.

I personally found Zoom looks best with the faces at the top of the screen and chat on my right-hand side. There was a slight delay when switching between people, overseas speakers, and moving into breakout rooms.

The system allows you to easily start, join and collaborate with other people on any device. Zoom can be used in the following industries: education, finance, marketing and communications, government, and healthcare.

Zoom Meetings can sync with your calendar system, so you can join the video conference from a desktop or mobile device.

You can also record your meetings locally or to the cloud, and create searchable transcripts for absent team members or anyone who needs to use a text reader for accessibility purposes.

Although the service is secure, always be careful about sharing personal information and images on any webcam or video conferencing app.

If I was patient and logged in early, I found changing my password easy to do. You may be asked for personal information to verify that it is you.

I noticed the following message:

“Due to increased demand, dial-in by phone audio conferencing capabilities may be temporarily removed from your free Basic account. During this time, we strongly recommend using our computer audio capabilities.”

At this point, it was tempting to give up, but I knew that if I missed my video conference I could listen via audio, and/or catch the recording afterwards when the Internet might not be so busy.

I like to point the camera towards my empty desk (facing downwards), until I can hear the other end or see what I look like and if I need to adjust any settings.

The tricky bit is then finding the super-secret meeting website address (it has a one time code). Fortunately for my meeting, I was able to gain early access via my Google meeting calendar entry (or mobile phone alert).

At this point, I was prompted to download an exe file. My security software checked it and it passed. I could see that my class had 26 of 100 spots filled. I noticed a white button, click on this and you can test your computer’s Audio speakers.

I assumed the application was downloading (grey circle rotating with blue), but actually, to my surprise, I was too early and the host had not started the meeting.

Using Zoom for Hosting Online Learning

Here is a great introductory video about using Zoom for remote and online learning:

If you are the speaker, be prepared for errors and tech issues.

It’s free to sign up for an account. There a number of different Zoom download options.

About Zoom

Zoom brings teams together to get more done in a frictionless video environment. Our easy, reliable, and innovative video-first unified communications platform provides video meetings, voice, webinars, and chat across desktops, phones, mobile devices, and conference room systems. Zoom helps enterprises create elevated experiences with leading business app integrations and developer tools to create customized workflows.

Zoom’s value is to care. We care for our customers, employees, company, community, and selves. Our culture of delivering happiness stems from this value.

Zoom Website: https://zoom.us/