2 - Zoom Quick Reference Guides and Best Practices

Quick Reference Guides

• Getting Started with Zoom on Windows and Mac
• How do I join a meeting
• How do I invite others to join a meeting
• Breakout Rooms Guide

Everyday Best Practices

• Preset your audio and video as "off" before joining a meeting - Go into zoom preferences, click video, scroll down and toggle "turn off my video when joining a meeting." Next, click audio and toggle "mute my mic when joining a meeting." You always want to make sure you are ready to be seen and heard. 
• Make sure to mute your mic when you're not going to be talking for a while. This will help reduce background noise as well as prevent unwanted noises from coming through.

Live-Event Best Practices

• Start early and start interacting - Always have your session open at least 15 minutes prior to the start time to get yourself and your team prepared.
• Bring a buddy to help you - If you expect more than 20 people to join you, consider bringing a subject matter expert to assist you. Zoom allows you to make them a co-host (locate the “more” menu next to their name in the participants list to “make co-host”) so that they can help manage participants, chat, and Q&A*. They will not be able to launch polls or end the meeting, however.
• Use dual monitors - It may prove difficult to manage all aspects of an online event on a single monitor. With a second monitor, you can host the screen sharing on your primary display and move windows like your participants list, chat, Q&A, and polling to a secondary monitor which will give you a greater ability to track everything at a glance.
• Use annotation to grab and direct attention - With Zoom’s annotation tools you have a lot of options for drawing, highlighting, making lines and arrows, and even blocking out areas on your screen under the “draw” menu. Use the spotlight menu to access the arrow pointer, and (our personal favorite) the red spotlight tool tip that will even let you use your mouse as normal while it’s active, which is ideal for demos.
• Manage the aesthetics of your webcam view - Take advantage of getting face-to-face with your audience by optimizing your meeting space for video. Lighting should be bright and even and preferably come from in front of you and never behind you to avoid casting shadows on your face. Your background should be interesting but not distracting – consider using the Virtual Background feature to present from literally, anywhere!
• Divide into smaller groups for a discussion on a certain topic. You can use Zoom’s Breakout Room feature to either self-select, pre-assign, or auto-assign students into groups for a short period of time so they may discuss things together. This guide describes how to manage breakout rooms in a session.