I am using Zoom in two of my classes and Google Meet in the other two. I can tell you that Zoom is definitely more user friendly, but kids do need to download the app or the extension.
It is working as long as your internet does not go off and the site is up and running. Friday both of those things caused snags in my meetings. Just be aware that can happen and if it does...Oh, well! That is what I am going to tell myself tomorrow. Best of luck!
Well, I guess my book club isn't using Zoom after all. They sent me a link and a phone number to call. I have no idea what to do LOL
This is an excerpt from the New York Post: Hackers have been hijacking video conferences on the popular software Zoom, in a frightening trend emerging amid the coronavirus pandemic, the FBI warned on Monday. “The FBI has received multiple reports of conferences being disrupted by pornographic and/or hate images and threatening language,” said a warning from the agency’s Boston division.
I saw that on another teacher site. Also, some kids are posting their classroom information (links or passwords or whatever you need to get into it) on social media sites so random people are logging in.
Awesome post! Thank you so much for sharing so much on Zoom. I was hoping to use the Whiteboard feature more with the students. When I ask a question, they can write down their responses on their own Whiteboard. Is this possible? If so, could you help me a bit on how to do that? Thanks so much!
My church group now wants to do a Zoom meeting. I have a desktop computer and a lap top but no camera or anything like that. Can you use your phone or should I order a camera?
The Zoom intruders are worse than you may realize. https://www.npr.org/2020/04/03/826129520/a-must-for-millions-zoom-has-a-dark-side-and-an-fbi-warning
Teacher NY, catnfiddle shares an important dark side to Zoom that is important to know and understand. The good news is that many steps can be taken to nearly eliminate this from happening. One big problem with Zoom is the default use to be that people could join Zoom without you first inviting them in to Zoom. Imagine a party where you send out invitations, but leave your front door wide open. It is possible that someone you don't want there ends up showing up. Instead, IMO you must, for safety reasons, make sure that students wait in the waiting room, and then you click them in. This is suppose to be the default now, but I would double check everything. Also, have them muted when entered. You need to take the few minutes before you start a meeting to make sure all those settings are correct to keep your online experience safe. Now back to the camera question. I have a laptop with a built in camera that has seen better days. It works, but I can tell it should be better. Lots of the students used their phone or their parent's phone to enter when I used Zoom, and I was impressed by the quality of the camera and how clear everyone looked. It seemed to be more clear than my built in camera that seems to have built in dirt on it that just won't come off. I don't think you need to order an external camera if you have a half way decent SMART phone or laptop with camera.
My husband has a laptop so I'll ask if it has a camera. I'll also try my phone. I am not the person in charge of the group so I will share the safety precautions with them. I'm not using it with students so I'm glad I don't have to worry about that.
We are a Google school, but we have Google Meet turned off for students. Some of the high school kids were using them for inappropriate kinds of video chats, so now they don't have the option to have those. I am moving to twice-weekly Zoom meetings starting next week. My kids aren't coming to ask questions about work. They just want to talk to someone.
Yes, mostly. The only way someone can gain unauthorized access to your Zoom Meeting is if the Zoom Meeting link is shared with someone who wouldn’t otherwise receive it or if they guess the Meeting ID and/or password. Default settings are now set such that participants have to wait in a Waiting Room and only the Host can allow people in. I also set it so participants are muted upon entry and are prevented from unmuting themselves. In addition, they can’t use a background photo, they cannot send private chat messages or save messages in the chat, they cannot send messages except to the host, and I made it so that once I kick someone from the meeting that they cannot rejoin. Doing all of this prevents anyone from disrupting your meeting unlawfully or at all, really, even if they get the link because they won’t be able to do anything except wait in the Waiting Room quietly.
futuremathsprof...good to hear from you. You look to be the Zoom King on this site. I need your advice. Do you know of any way to use Whiteboards so all students can write down their answer before I choose someone to post it? Kind of like on final jeopardy on the show Jeopardy? Thanks!
Well, you can share a Whiteboard with your students that they then can annotate on (if you allow them to, that is). You can also do a screen-share to show everyone what you are doing in real time, as well as allow students to screen share one at a time. I think it might be easier to have everyone type in the Chat to share responses or you can share a Whiteboard with everyone and allow them to annotate it one by one or in small groups at a time or something. I hope that helps.
1-2 meetings per week on Skype w/admin Teams- We call or email It helps. The bulk of my work load is actually dealing with parents!
We had one full staff meeting last week; we start remote learning today. At this point, there are no required meetings.
You may want to read this https://www.theguardian.com/technol...ology-security-coronavirus-video-conferencing
Haha. I still can't believe she's gone! Slightly off-topic, but "Until You Come Back to Me", "Jump to It" and "Daydreaming" are my favorites.
Hey everyone, I am new here, so bear with me please I am a software developer and my wife is a teacher and together with my friend we started thinking how can we improve online meetings. We wanted to add to Zoom and other platforms things like Countdown, Meeting Timer, and more visuals that could show up next to your face on a call and help you teach. We've identified teachers who use Zoom for their work, could benefit from what we were going to build. Sorry if this is off-topic, but I am currently looking for testers who would help us improve our app and provide feedback on how we could help you guys more with your online teaching. It's currently completely free, I am not charging everyone, as I'm just looking to learn how to improve it. Take a look at the link below and DM me if you are interested in testing it out, I will explain everything https://meet.cam/ Thanks again and if anyone could me point out to any other place where I could talk to teachers about their expectations for improving online classes, it would be amazing. -Zbigniew
We've recently introduced a way to mirror the outgoing video on calls, so it's earier to write for example or teach things that require immediate recognition of left and right. Worth a try!
