Zoom Tutorials

Learn how to use and best utilize Zoom - Eastern University's web conferencing platform - for online classes and meetings.

Getting Started

The first time you log in, you will be prompted to join Eastern's account. Please click Consolidate into Account, then click Continue.

After that, you should be logged in. If you have trouble signing in after following these steps, please contact us at brightspace@eastern.edu!

Every student and faculty member at Eastern University has their own Zoom account. To access yours, go to eastern.zoom.us and click Login in the top right corner.

On the next screen, select the option at the bottom of the screen to sign in with Google, then enter your Eastern email address and password.

Hosting a Meeting

For New Meetings

To host a meeting, click on Host Meeting in the upper right hand corner. You will then be given the option to start a meeting with your webcam video on or off. we recommend choosing With Video On, but you can always change your camera settings in the Zoom meeting.

Each time you host a meeting like this, a new Zoom link will be generated, making this method of hosting meetings ideal for non-recurring meetings.

In Your Personal Meeting Room

You also have the option to host a meeting in your Personal Meeting Room. You can find your Personal Meeting Room information and host a meeting in it under the Personal Room tab.

This is recommended for hosting online office hours, as the link to your Personal Meeting Room never changes. Once you provide others with the link, they can access your Personal Meeting Room at any time, though if you are not in the meeting as the host, they will not be allowed in until you start the meeting.

You can change your Personal Meeting Room settings by clicking on the Edit button at the bottom. Here, you can enable security settings like a waiting room which doesn't allow anyone in the meeting even after you've started it until you let them in. This is also recommended for online office hours to ensure student confidentiality when they will be discussing their work and grades with you.

For Recurring Meetings

Recurring meetings are ideal for online class sessions that occur more than once a month. To schedule a recurring meeting, find the Schedule a Meeting button on the left side of the screen under the Upcoming tab.

Once you click on that button, you will be presented with a bunch of options for your scheduled meeting. There are only a few you need to pay close attention to:

Topic: This is the name of your meeting. For class meetings, we recommend making the topic the name and number of your class.

When: This indicates the day and time your meeting will start. For classes, this will be the first day your class meets and the start time marked on the syllabus.

Duration: This is how long the meeting will last. For class meetings, change the duration to match the length of your scheduled class period.

Recurring meeting: For class meetings, remember to check the box next to this item. This will keep the link active after the meeting ends. Once you check the box, a drop-down menu will appear with the options Daily, Weekly, Monthly, and No Fixed Time. For class meetings, select Weekly.

Occurs on: Select the days of the week your class is scheduled to meet.

End Date: Set this to the day after your last class meeting to ensure that the room will not close before the semester is over, but it will close after.

When you are finished changing these settings to suit your class, click Save. If you have multiple classes that will be meeting on Zoom, we recommend setting up one recurring meeting per class.

Once you save your meeting settings, your meeting should appear in the Upcoming tab, ready for you to start when the time comes.

Sharing a Meeting

There are multiple ways to share a meeting with others. This video goes over several ways to share a Zoom link with your desired participants.

For class meetings, we strongly suggest adding your class Zoom link to your Brightspace site and making it a prominent feature by linking to it in your introduction module or by making a separate module for the Zoom link and any meeting recordings. This way, it is easy for students to find and use the link when they need it.

Recording a Meeting

For class sessions, you may want to consider recording your Zoom meetings for students so they can play back and review the material discussed during class. To do this, you will need to be the host or co-host of a Zoom meeting.

You should see a circle icon that says Record in the bottom panel. It will give you two options when you click on it: Record on this Computer and Record to the Cloud. Both options have pros and cons, but whatever you decide to use works perfectly fine.

Record on this Computer

This option will save your recording to your computer's files. Unless you specify otherwise in Zoom's settings, recordings will download to Documents > Zoom after the meeting has ended.

We have found that videos recorded on the computer have a higher video quality, however they take up storage space on your device and are only accessible on the device they were recorded on, unless you upload them to a place you can access at any time. They will remain accessible on your device until you delete them.

This option is best suited for those recording short lecture videos.

Record to the Cloud

This option will save your recording to Zoom's cloud storage, which you can access on the Recordings page when you log in to your Zoom account.

We have found that videos recorded to the cloud have a slightly lower video quality than those recorded to the computer, however they do not take up any storage space on your device, and they are accessible to watch and download from any device that you have logged in to Zoom. These recordings are only accessible for 30 days.

This option is best suited to those recording longer live class sessions.

Audio and Video

Speaker and Microphone

On the bottom far left of the Zoom window, you will see a microphone icon. By clicking on the microphone, you can mute and unmute yourself. It is best practice to mute yourself when someone else is speaking.

When you click on the arrow next to the microphone, a bunch of options will appear. Here, you can make sure that your speaker and microphone are correct by selecting Test Speaker and Microphone and following the two prompts it gives you. You should be able to hear both the ringtone and your own voice when prompted.

Camera

On the right of the microphone icon is a camera icon. By clicking on the camera, you can turn your video on and off. It is best practice to turn your video off when you step away from your device during a meeting. Students participating in class on Zoom must have their cameras on to count towards participation, unless they have been given prior permission to keep their camera off by the professor.

When you click on the arrow next to the camera, a bunch of options will appear. Here, you can make sure that your camera is correct if you are using an external webcam or an additional camera.

You can also choose to blur your background or choose a virtual background if your current background is messy, if people may be walking in and out of frame behind you, or just because!

Share Screen

In the center of the options at the bottom of the Zoom window, you will see a green box and arrow icon labeled Share Screen. By clicking on it, you will be able to choose which view from your device to share with the rest of the participants in the meeting. This feature is most often used to show PowerPoints, play videos, and perform a live demonstration of a website or software.

If you are sharing a video, remember to check the boxes at the bottom of the Share Screen window that say

Share sound and Optimize for video clip before clicking the blue Share button. If you don't, participants will not be able to hear the video you are playing, and the video quality may be grainy or choppy.

If you want students to be able to share their screen to present a project, you can allow them to do so by clicking the arrow next to the Share Screen icon, clicking

Advanced Sharing Options and selecting the option for

All participants to have permission to share their screen.

Zoom Features

Breakout Rooms

Breakout rooms allow you to divide students into small groups for discussions. This video will walk you through the steps of creating breakout rooms and the interactions available within them.

Please note that while this video was recorded using an older version of Zoom that may look different to the current version, the Breakout Rooms icon and all of the steps mentioned remain the same.

Whiteboards

Zoom Whiteboards allow you and your meeting participants to collaborate in real time during and after class on diagrams, study guides, problem solving activities, and more!

While this video is geared more toward businesses in its example use cases, it showcases how you and your students can collaborate using sticky notes, comments, flowcharts, and images to create a living document that everyone can refer back to for studying.

Live Captioning

One way to make your Zoom meetings more accessible is to enable auto live captioning.

This video covers a variety of topics related to accessibility features in Zoom, including how to enable auto live captioning and how to allow participants to download the transcript of the video so they can easily refer back to the lesson material later.

Polls

Polls allow participants to share their thoughts with you in real time. They can be used as a mini quiz to see where students are in terms of understanding the class period's material, an exit slip, a reading check, or an evaluation of the class or themselves.

This video shows you how to create polls in Zoom and use them during meetings, as well as how to make responses to polls anonymous if you wish.

Classroom Computers

If you are hosting a Zoom meeting in one of Eastern University's classrooms, select Audio Settings from the microphone menu, then click Advanced. Find the setting that says Signal processing by Windows audio device drivers and change it from Auto to Off (Windows - Raw). This allows for the best audio quality in our classrooms.

Security Settings

As with anything online, there are always security factors to keep in mind. Luckily, Zoom has a plethora of security settings to ensure that anyone who is not in your class is unable to join, and that those who are in your class are appearing appropriately.

If you are a host in a meeting, you can change the meeting's security settings by clicking on the shield icon next to the camera in the options bar at the bottom of the Zoom window.

Lock Meeting

This option disallows anyone who isn't already in the meeting room. Make sure all students who will be attending that day are in the meeting room before you select this option. If a student leaves the classroom for whatever reason, most notably for electrical or internet-related issues and needs to rejoin, remember to unlock the meeting or they will not be allowed back in.

Enable Waiting Room

This option places those who are trying to enter the meeting on hold until you as the host decide whether or not to allow them in.

Hide Profile Pictures

When cameras are off, Zoom will display a person's profile picture. If a student's profile picture is inappropriate, you have the option to hide all profile pictures.

From this security menu, you are also able to toggle participant permissions such as screensharing, sending chat messages to one another, renaming themselves, unmuting themselves, turning their cameras on, and participating in Whiteboards. You can also suspend all participant activities if necessary, turning off all video, audio, screensharing, recording, and breakout groups, but hopefully your students will participate in an appropriate manner and you won't ever need to use that feature.

When there are participants in the meeting, the security menu will also show an option to Remove Participant so you can kick out any unwanted guests in your class session. You can also remove participants, mute them, and turn their cameras off from the Participants tab which is located directly to the right of the Security icon.