Using Zoom for online teaching

Teach live online in an online meeting room with Zoom (up to 500 participants).

Online Teaching with Zoom

Zoom is an online collaboration platform, where you can teach up 500 students online via video and chat – and share your screen like in most video conference tools. You can divide your students into breakout rooms for group work and video discussions.

Getting Started

  1. Install the Zoom app on your computer – use the Zoom install guide at KUnet.
  2. Set up a Zoom meeting on your computer – use the Zoom guide at KUnet. (Alternatively, you can schedule your Zoom meetings directly in Absalon. Look below)
  3. Share the link with your students in Absalon by adding it to a module and maybe sending an announcement. Find the link by clicking the Invite icon in the tool bar (see below) and Copy URL.
  4. Enter the video meeting and familiarize yourself with the tool.
    There are lots of handy guides to managing meetings from Zoom here – both basic and advanced options.
  5. Ask students to mute microphones unless they need to speak, and if they are having connection problems or sound breaking up they can try turning their own video off.
    Here is a handy guide on how to be a better participant online (in Danish).
  6. You are ready to teach!

Screencast: how to create your teaching session in Zoom (Danish only)
Notice: As of December 2020, we recommend you use a passcode in your recurring meetings. You don’t have to share the passcode, it is incorporated in the Meeting link.

Screencast: How to announce a Zoom teaching to your students (Danish only)

Guide to the Zoom Control Task Bar

  • Microphone on/off
  • Camera on/off
  • Invite more people to the session (here you can also get an URL to your session)
  • Participants (opens participant list in sidebar)
  • Polls (see below)
  • Share Screen / Stop Sharing
  • Chat (opens the group chat list in sidebar)
  • Reactions via icons
  • More options: Lets you open a personal chat, record your session or make a break out session (see below)
  • End Meeting: End meeting for everyone or leave the meeting and let everyone else continue.

Didactic Tips

Break out rooms

If you want students to work in groups on a specific case or exercise use the break out function in Zoom. See how to get started with Breakout-Rooms.

See how to manage breakout rooms in this screencast (in Danish). It covers how to setup up rooms in three different ways and how to apply the appropriate setting to create a frame for the breakout rooms.

Screencast: create pre-defined breakout rooms in Zoom (Danish)

Polls 

Zoom has an integrated function for polls where you can ask questions in class and let the students answer or vote online. Use the Polls button in the task bar to enter questions and use it in your teaching. Screencast on using Polls in Zoom.

Whiteboard

Press the Share Screen icon which will show you all open screens on your computer as well as an electronic whiteboard. Click on the virtual whiteboard which will open a whiteboard on the shared screen which you can use for equations, mathematics etc. (freehand drawing). You can consider pre-recording your equations or non-latin alphabets using a pencast tool see more here: Tools for pencast.

Zoom Security

If you are using the official UCPH account through https://ucph-ku.zoom.us/ to access Zoom, your use is covered by data management agreements, stored on servers in Denmark, properly backed-up etc. See this FAQ from DEIC (Danish).
If you do not use “Waiting Room” or set a Password for your meeting, do might risk a random stranger appearing in your room (as it is public, and only requires ‘guessing’ a 10-digit number), but there are ways to avoid that:

Password: simply set a password, when you create the meeting (you can keep the suggested password or turn it into something more memorable). Anyone invited through Outlook will get the code in their invitation – if you are sharing the URL to your session through Absalon, simply remember to share the password as well.

Waiting Room: Enable ‘Waiting Room’ for your session, and you have total control of who enters the room. This, however, means that you will have to allow each participant to enter, so a password is a better solution for larger groups.