About Zoom
Step 1. Check Your Set-up
Step 2. Plan Your Zoom Classroom
Step 3: Start Your Classroom
Step 3B: Sharing Your Screen for Slideshow
Step 3C: Sharing Your Screen for Whiteboard
Step 3D: The Breakout Room Option
Step 3E: Different Meetings for Specific Sections/Groups
Step 3F: Connecting your Ipad to a zoom meeting
Step 3G: How to create and use polls in Zoom
Step 3H: Interactive teaching with ZOOM
Step 4: End Your Classroom

About Zoom

In light of the COVID-19 pandemic, the University of Amsterdam has moved to digital teaching. In order to support teachers during these times, the University has made Zoom available to all staff and students on short notice. In particular, for teaching, staff and students can now find Zoom embedded into Canvas.

Zoom is a cloud-based video conference service that you can use to virtually meet with your students - either by video, audio-only, or both - while conducting live chats. It also allows you to record sessions to view later. Through its integration with Canvas, you are able to organize sessions with your students (up to 300 students) in a manageable way.

To be clear, as with all software, there is some learning curve to using Zoom. Our initial pilot tests with students and teachers suggest that the interface is reasonably intuitive and does not require too much technological know-how. However, we know these are trying times so do not worry about perfection. Our aim is to educate our students as best we can. Just be imperfectly you and that’s already perfect! With that said, this manual has everything you need to get zoom-ing!

Error message

Step 1. Check Your Set-up

To begin, head to your Canvas course and click Zoom in the course menu.

When you get there, you might find an error-message that says “User does not exist or not belong to this

account”. If that happens, don’t worry! This is because you already have a personal Zoom account tied to your @uva.nl email address.

To fix this, you need to migrate to the Zoom business account. Please log in to your account on https://zoom.us (if already logged in, log out first), and you should be prompted with a request to switch. Check this instructional video for a very easy step-by-step process.

Through the website uva-live.zoom.us you can join, host, and login to your account. See this document with a detailed explanation.

To use zoom you need to install the zoom application. If you work from a UvA hosted laptop (UvA Werkplek), you can find the installation instruction right here. For self-supported laptops or private computers, zoom can be downloaded through the zoom.us website.

Step 2. Plan Your Zoom Classroom

Once you are ready to get zoom-ing, your next step is to plan a class meeting with your students.

To schedule a Zoom meeting:

Click Zoom in the menu of your Canvas course.
Click Schedule a New Meeting
Name your meeting(s) (e.g. Office hours, Lecture 1, or Discussion Session). Make sure your name is useful to you and your students.
Choose recurring meetings when appropriate so URL will remain the same
We recommend using the settings displayed below, although for larger groups (10+), you might opt for participant video OFF for bandwidth.
Make sure to click on only authenticated users can join, this will make sure that only students with an UvAnetID can join the meeting.
You do NOT need to enable Registration for your meeting, however, you can opt for registration if you would like to gather certain information about participants beforehand. As a default, we would recommend NO registration.
Once you click Save, you will find a confirmation screen that highlights your information.
You are now ready to start this meeting! (but you don't have to start it right away)
Please note: during your FIRST time using Zoom, you will be prompted to download Zoom software. We recommend you Download and install Zoom for your Mac, PC, mobile, or tablet device. The Zoom software is not required, but is recommended as it will give your more options. Even if you have an UvA laptop that you cannot normally install software on, the Zoom software should still work.

Step 3: Start Your Classroom

Before you begin your class experience, especially if it is new to you and your students, we recommend that you communicate with your students that you will be lecturing via Zoom. You might encourage them to test their setup ahead of time and also suggest general practices that can help their digital experience, for example by sharing our guide on Zoom Etiquette in Online Classes. The Keep on Teaching Page has many tips under “External Resources”, but in particular, you might remind them that a quieter space is easier (if possible), that earphones /headset may help them focus more, and that they should ENABLE video and audio to get the best potential experience.

Of note, we recommend this website - https://zoom.us/test - to encourage students to test their settings ahead of time and ensure they are READY-TO-ZOOM

When you are ready, click Zoom in your Canvas course and you’ll see any upcoming meetings on the home screen.

Click Start
You will see the following screen. If you do not see the pop-up, it means you do not have the Zoom Meeting software installed. You can do two things:

1. 1. Install the software (recommended). This should only take only 30 seconds and is even possible on UvA’s supported laptops.
  2. Use Zoom through your browser by clicking start from your browser. Please note that this will give you fewer options than the software.

Once you are in the interface, take a moment to get familiar with the interface. You can determine whether you want your microphone muted (icon on left) or not, same for your video (second icon).

Your View. You can select the small icon in the top of the speaker view for both a “speaker view” and “gallery view”. Active speaker is the default video layout. It will switch the large video window between who is speaking. You can also select to view your video layout in Gallery View. When using Gallery View, you will be able to see up to as many participants as your screen size resolution allows (normally 49 participants) and then can scroll to see more.
Off-note, while it can be easier to present to “faces” versus “teaching into the void”, you might ask students to stay audio-only (video = OFF) for larger classes, particular if you or they experience bandwidth issues.

Manage Participants: When you click “Manage Participants”, you can see a list of participants that have joined your call. As participants join, they should be muted (if you followed the settings above), and you (or they) can unmute themselves. You can also click on each name individually if you need to send a private message to them.
Chat: When you click “Chat”, you have the opportunity to text-chat with your participants (to “everyone”). This can be a great way to get your students to announce they are there, and to get familiar with the functionality of Zoom. You can also personally chat 1:1 as needed.
Record: There is also the option to “Record” if you wish to record the lecture, making sure that all individuals are aware that you are recording content ahead of time. Also, please be aware of GDPR policies before recording or storing anything. .
Breakout Rooms: There is also an advanced option “Breakout Rooms” that you might opt for at later stages in your teaching. More information about Breakout Rooms follows below (see 3D below).
Invite: You will also see an option for “Invite” - this is useful if you are inviting someone to join your class that is not affiliated with your Canvas group, such as a guest lecturer. Here you can simply click “invite”, and then in the button select Copy URL to send the URL to your invited guest.
Share Your Screen: You also have the option to “Share Your Screen” (green icon), which you might wish to do if you are going to show a Powerpoint presentation, for example (see 3B below), or perhaps would like a digital whiteboard (see 3C below).

ProTip: You can watch this video for a step-by-step guide to setting up Zoom - also highlights 3B, 3C, and 3D.

Step 3B: Sharing Your Screen for Slideshow

For some meetings (e.g. discussions), you might not require slides. But, for others, you might wish to share your screen to show a presentation (e.g., PowerPoint). To do this:

Once the call has started, open PowerPoint.
Click on the Share screen button (a green icon). You will now see a series of tiles of open images on your screen. Find your open PowerPoint file, select and begin sharing. Everyone in your digital class can now see this file, as well.
In the corner, you can see yourself as well as the other callers - depending upon your view.
You can easily pause your share at any time.
Simply hit STOP SHARE (in red) when you are finished with your slide deck.
Note that students can also share their screens, if you would like to. You can see the advanced sharing options (small arrow next to share screen) to enable this.

Step 3C: Sharing Your Screen for Whiteboard

For some meetings (e.g. discussions), you might not require slides. But, for others, you might wish to share your screen to show a whiteboard. Zoom has an option for this, too!

Once the call has started, click on the Share screen button (a green icon). You will now see a series of tiles of open images on your screen. Select Whiteboard and select share. Everyone in your digital class can now see this file, as well.

In the corner, you can see yourself as well as the other callers - depending upon your view.
Here you can go ahead and use the whiteboard tools to interact with your students.
You can easily pause your share at any time, your whiteboard will stay there during the class.
Simply hit STOP SHARE (in red) when you are finished.

Step 3D: The Breakout Room Option

If you are feeling particularly adventurous, and if your class content makes sense for it, you can use the breakout room option in your class. Simply put, Breakout rooms allow you to split your class in up to 50 separate sessions. You can choose how to split the participants (for example, into pre-assigned teams) or you can let the system do this randomly. Breakout groups do require a bit more technological confidence (or an adventurous spirit!) initially, but once you get the hang of them, they can be a great addition to your classroom.

To learn about breakout rooms, we recommend that you take a moment to watch this video. And, for advanced users, Zoom has also prepared this documentation.

Step 3E: Different Meetings for Specific Sections/Groups

It is possible to schedule separate zoom meetings for different sections (tutorial groups) or different groups. Sadly, there is no option to restrict access to a meeting to a specific section or group. However, it is possible to organize separate meetings through clear communication with your students. There are two ways to communicate the meetings to students:

Create the meetings and offer each to a section/group in section- or group-specific announcements.
Create the meetings and make a list with the different meetings, and place it in a (home)page in the course.

Either way, it is important that the different meetings are named clearly so that students can identify easily which meeting they should attend. Mention both the course and section- or group-name.

Step 3F: Connection your Ipad to a zoom meeting

For lecturing, it can sometimes be very handy to jot down something for your students to see. So if you are fortunate enough to have an Ipad at hand, you can make this happen within a zoom session.

The wonderful Fam te Poel has created the video below to show you how this is done.

Step 3G: How to create and use polls in Zoom

As a teacher, you can create a poll in Zoom. Fam will instruct you on how to set this up.

Step 3H: Interactive teaching with ZOOM

Step 4: End Your Classroom

Once you are finished teaching, it is very easy to end the meeting. Simply select the END MEETING option in the bottom right corner. You will then be asked to either Leave Meeting or End Meeting for All.

If you wish to leave, but have someone else in charge (e.g., a teaching assistant, you must make them a HOST first). You can do this by hovering over their name in the participant list.

Click “End Meeting for All”
Congrats! You have successfully run your Zoom-meeting. Nice work!

This document was inspired by Stanford’s instructions for Zoom in Canvas (please note they use a different version of Zoom). Thanks for sharing!

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