Transcript: Zoom 101

Presenter: Peter Sloan


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>> Hey, everyone. This is the Zoom workshop on- for the Grandparents Council as part of Trying Together and I’m going to be going through how to use Zoom. Thank you. First off, my name’s Peter Sloan. I’m the Director of Administration for Trying Together. I focus on data analytics and physical processes within Trying Together. Trying Together’s mission is to support high quality care and education for young children, by providing advocacy, committee resources, and professional growth opportunities for the needs and rights of children, their families and individuals who interact with them. As I said before, this Zoom workshop is part of the Grandparent Council and the virtual educational series. If you have any questions about the council, feel free to contact Lindsey Ramsey. You can reach her via the phone number shown or via email. So, as I said before, this is Zoom 101. What is Zoom? Zoom is a video conferencing technology, similar to Skype, Microsoft Teams and Google Meet. They all provide video conference capabilities, where you can see the other person that you’re talking to and more than two people can join. In order to use Zoom, you need to create an account. You’d want to go to the website Zoom.us. When you get there, you can create an account and it also gives you the ability to download the software that you use when you receive a Zoom link. So, what you want to do on your computer is you want to go to zoom.us, download the software. If you’re trying to do this on a smartphone, you want to go to the app store and download the Zoom app. If you’re using a smartphone, you’re able to do that via an app in the app store and then, you can download it and then you’ll be able to join meetings as well. How do you join as Zoom meeting? Well, first off, someone else has to create a Zoom meeting and then they will send you a link. When you receive the link, at the time that the meeting started, you just click on the link and you’re able to get in there. Some meetings now have a password in the invitation for the Zoom meeting. You will need to take note of the password and be able to type it in when you click that Zoom link. Same thing for a phone; you should have an email on your phone. Whenever you want to join the meeting, you just click on the link and then if you’re having any audio issues, you’re able to join in these Zoom meetings via your phone or you can dial it in. You can do that both- if you’re doing a Zoom meeting on your computer, you just call in. Or if you’re doing a Zoom meeting on the phone, it’ll give you specific instructions on how to join the meeting and how to have audio. There’s a couple main buttons when you join the Zoom meeting. They both look like this: one is mute, one is stop video. The two icons that are showing at the top, those are showing that, you know, for me right now, my- my microphone is not on mute, so everyone can hear me. And then, my video is on as well. If you join a meeting, and you don’t want your microphone to be on, which is really best practice; when you join a meeting, you don’t want to be making any additional noise, especially if you’re joining late, you’ll want to click that button and mute yourself. And if you’re muted, it was shown a red diagonal line through it. At the same time, you may be a situation where you don’t want your video on. We’ll kind of go through those situations later in this presentation. Or you might not want your video on if it’s going to be distracting other participants in the meeting. One of the most common questions we get about Zoom is: “I’ve joined the Zoom meeting but I can’t see everyone else. I’m only seeing the speaker.” So, there’s a couple icons that you see below. You can click between speaker view or gallery view. If you want to see everybody else, you want to click on gallery view which is the- the icons that are showing on the right, which shows the little boxes below. If you just want to see the speaker, if that’s easier for you, you don’t want to focus on everyone else, then you just want to click on speaker view. If you’re on your phone though, there are no buttons. So, if you want to switch between speaker and gallery view, you’ll want to swipe the phone- swipe the screen on the phone left and right. At the end of the meeting, you may be ready to leave the meeting. There’s a couple different ways you can do that. It could be a- an “X”, and it’s in the corner where you can just click to leave it. You can also- you’ll always see a red button that says, “Leave meeting” as well. So, whenever you’re done or if you have to leave early, it’s best practice to just leave the meeting and not leave your phone on, where different audio or something could pick up. If you want to rejoin the meeting, or if you click the wrong button by accident, just go back to that link again, and if you have a password, just type the password in again and you can rejoin the meeting. Here are some best practices for using Zoom. One, make sure you have a strong internet connection. If you don’t have a strong internet connection, or if you’re having issues, it could be a problem with your internet connection where the audio and the video will be off, they won’t be perfectly synched or someone will freeze or your screen will freeze. So, always make sure you have a strong internet connection. Another best practice is to plug a computer to wall power. It just helps out the computer if it’s plugged in; it’s one less thing that the computer is having to do, relying on battery power, it just kind of makes the Zoom experience work a lot better. As you can see right here, I’m wearing headphones. This really helps to avoid background noise. What I’m going to do right here is I’m actually going to unplug my headphones. I’m going to talk a little bit just through the microphone that comes to the computer and you’ll be able to hear the difference. So, as you can now hear, my headphones are not plugged in, I’ve taken them off and the sound is coming through a lot differently. So, if you’re really trying to be clear, and you want to make sure that your audience can hear you, you’ll want to have your headphones plugged in and working- working as you join a meeting. Another thing you want to notice is behind me I just have a blank wall. You don’t really want to do Zoom meetings with your video on, in like a coffee shop or with anyone walking behind you; or if there’s a window or doorway, that can be distracting to other participants. And you want to think about, you know, even if you’re in a meeting in person, that you’re giving full attention to the presenter and that you’re not doing anything that’s- would distract the speaker or the other participants. You also want to make sure when you join a Zoom meeting, that your sound is fully turned up. Last thing you want to hear- a presenter wants to hear is that someone has joined the meeting, they can hear you, they’re interrupting you, to say you know, they can’t hear you. So, you really want to make sure that you’re not doing anything that’s really distracting or bothersome to a presenter. Etiquette. So, you know- as you know, as you can see right here, I’m on a video conference. You can see me- so you want to make sure that everyone can see me and that I’m not do anything distracting to them. If I am talking, and I’ve turned on my microphone, I want to make sure that I’m not doing anything that’s going to be bothersome to others. So, I’m not typing, I’m not chewing, no one’s seeing me eat food while I’m in a Zoom meeting. And if I’m not speaking, and I need to do something else, make sure my microphone’s off. So any other background noise or- that’s coming through, no one’s going to hear that. The other thing we’ve seen people have issues with too, it’s just- imagine that this is a regular conversation, that there isn’t people talking on top of each other. So, wait your turn to speak. If there’s two people talking at one time, just pause, wait until the other person is done speaking and then jump right in. If you have a question during the presentation, and you’re a little bit nervous about interrupting the speaker, that’s what the chat function is for there- for you. There’s a button where you can click, where it’s chat, you can type in your question. The presenter can just keep going with their presentation and then when there’s an appropriate time, they can answer your question. Or they can call you to ask a question. It kind of puts the choice for the speaker and makes sure that you’re not interrupting them.

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