Zoom Zoom Zoom

Yes, that is Protozoa from the Disney Channel Original Movie classic, Zenon: Girl of the 21st Century. Why? Because this blog entry is about my experiences today with Zoom (zoom zoom).

Today, I had my first two scheduled Zoom meetings with my American Literature and British Literature students. They went pretty well, but I've already learned some things to make Thursday's meetings even better.

Waiting Room

The first thing I enabled when I read some of the awful things that have been happening in Zoom classes across the world was Zoom's waiting room feature. When you enable waiting room, anyone who tries to join your meeting has to be personally approved by you. If you see a name you don't recognize or an account that seems sketchy, you don't have to admit them into the meeting.

Additionally, you can customize your waiting room (if you want to be a little extra like I tend to be).  It's a very handy feature that will help you to sort who is and who is not allowed in your Zoom meetings.

Introduction Screen

When I started my meeting, I set the default settings to mute the microphones and turn off the videos of each participant. Just in case students wanted to override that default, I opened the minute 15 minutes early and used screen share to display a Google Slide that had my expectations for the Zoom meeting. 

I'm just saying-- a mute option would be nice in the typical 9 AM class. 

It was on the introduction screen that I realized I had missed a setting. Unfortunately, I did not think to take a screenshot of what I saw as I began to start my American Lit Zoom meeting, but I'll recreate it for you...

I mean, rude.

That's when I learned about Zoom's annotation feature.

Annotation

Knowing that Zoom has an annotation feature is awesome! Learning that Zoom has an annotation feature because one of my lovely students decided to scribble all over my welcome screen is less awesome.

I saw it, rolled my eyes, and started clicking around until I found out how to 1) disable annotations for the audience and 2) erase all annotations.

Where to click when you need to erase your students' scribbles.

To erase all annotations (once you've disabled them, if you've had to because a student drew all over your Zoom), click "Annotate," then "Clear," and then "Erase all annotations." 

Boom. No more scribbles and you can continue on with your planned Zoom.

I would like to experiment more with the annotation feature and may try to incorporate it more in my Zoom meetings on Thursday (or maybe I'll surprise my coworkers who don't read this blog in the faculty meeting on Friday when I start doodling on their computer screens?). 

Wrap-Up

Today concluded my school's second day of online teaching and I'm feeling pretty good. 88% of my students have checked in via the attendance assignment I mentioned in yesterday's blog post. That's not a bad number. I am, however, pretty concerned about the 12% of my students who have not checked in. I hope all is well. I miss them. I miss my coworkers. I miss my school. 

Anyway, hope some of this helped! I'll continue to update as I use Zoom more (if I use Zoom more). 

Until next time,

K. Hanlin