Zoom Video Conferencing Tutorial

Hi, everyone!  This is Lara Hammock from the Marble Jar Channel and in today's video, I'll give you a brief tutorial on using Zoom, which seems to be the video conferencing service of choice during quarantine.

Okay -- now that I've done about 12 impromptu Zoom tutorials for family and friends, I figured it might be helpful to do a quick video on it.  I'll definitely go over attending a Zoom meeting, but I'll also cover how to schedule a meeting, invite others, and I'll review some of the cool features.

I've used Zoom many times before all this since it is the video conferencing app favored by my grad school program, but it's only in Coronavirus quarantine that I've felt compelled to purchase a Pro account and really learn how to use it.  I've used Zoom to schedule regular meetings with colleagues and fellow students, but now I've also scheduled Zoom happy hours, dinner parties, game nights, and even my grandma's memorial service.  

So, first of all, Zoom is a video conference or video meeting service.  This means, you schedule a meeting and you invite people to join your meeting.  This is different from a video CALLING service like FaceTime in that you can't call someone and have them answer the phone to join your meeting.  They have to log on and join the meeting themselves.  So, first let's talk about 

Attending a Zoom Meeting

The nice thing about Zoom is that you don't have to have an account to join a meeting.  The meeting organizer or host will send you an invitation to the meeting.  That invitation usually includes a URL or website link, a Meeting ID, a password, and a bunch of phone numbers that you can dial if you don't want to use the audio from your computer.  We'll talk about that in a second.  Really, these are the important bits of information -- and if all goes well, you really only need the URL.  You can join a Zoom meeting from your computer or a mobile device.  In each case, although you don't need a Zoom account, you WILL need to install the app or software in order to join.  Let's walk through each process, first on a 

• Computer - So, you've received a Zoom meeting invite in an email.  If you are on a computer, you click on the meeting URL right here.  If you haven't installed the Zoom software yet, it will automatically download that software to your computer at this point.  You may have to confirm access to make changes to your computer, etc.  If nothing happens (and give it a little time before you do this), you CAN click this link to download & run Zoom to jumpstart the process.  But, it should all happen automatically.  Once you've installed the software, you will need to allow Zoom to open the software by clicking on "Open Zoom Meetings."  If it prompts, confirm that you DO want to use your computer's audio, and you are on!  Seeing just your own face means that you are the only person in the meeting room right now and you are waiting for others to join you.  Okay, now let's talk about joining a Zoom meeting from an iOS
• Device - I'm assuming for the purposes of this video that the Android and iOS apps are similar.  To join a meeting, you'll need to first download the Zoom app.  If you click on a meeting URL before you download the app, you will get an error that says something like your browser "cannot open the page because the address is invalid."  So, go to your App Store, look up Zoom Cloud Meetings, and download it -- it's free.  Now, when you click the meeting URL, it will automatically launch the app.  If you don't have an account, it will prompt you for your name.  This will identify you throughout the whole meeting, so watch for typing errors here.  If prompted, allow Zoom to use your camera and microphone and join with video.  It usually asks how you want to hear others -- choose Call using Internet Audio for this unless you have had problems with your device audio in the past.  And you are in!  This should work for any mobile device or tablet.  Next, let me show you how to

Schedule a Meeting

Okay -- so the free version of Zoom allows you to host meetings with one other person for up to 24 hours.  But if you want to have more than 2 people, your meeting will end after 40 minutes.  Unless you sign up for a Pro account for about $15 a month, which I went ahead and sprung for.  I figured it's about the same as two beers during happy hour and really the only way I'm socializing these days!  Either way, you'll need to create an account in order to schedule a meeting.  

I have Zoom installed on my computer, iPhone, and iPad.  I would suggest scheduling meetings and inviting attendees through your phone or tablet because it is way simpler and faster than on a computer.   So, let's schedule a meeting from my iPad.  Here's the home screen.  If you want to start a meeting right now -- you click on New Meeting.  If you want to schedule a meeting for a future time -- even if it's 5 minutes from now, you click on Schedule.  So, I'm going to hit Schedule and name my meeting.  Then fill in when you want it to start, how long the meeting will last, make sure your time zone is correct, and choose whether you want it to be a recurring meeting.  If you fill in your calendar -- in this case it only gives me the option of the iOS Calendar, Zoom will auto-create an appointment for you with all of these details, which I think is super useful.  Okay -- now it wants you to choose whether you want to use your personal meeting ID or whether you want to generate a new one specific to this meeting.  Some folks find it easier to use their own meeting ID.  This is the equivalent of having a meeting room booked for the full day with people coming in and out for their meeting times with you.  The problem is that anyone who knows your meeting ID could theoretically drop in at any moment to any meeting that you have scheduled.  It's convenient since you don't have to keep giving out your meeting ID to people you meet with regularly, but I prefer to generate new IDs for each meeting.  It's a preference.  I also choose to require a meeting password.  The meeting ID and password are baked into the URL that you send to your attendees, so if everything is working right, there is no need for them to type either of these pieces of information in.  The URL has that info embedded and should let  them directly into the meeting.  If they are having issues with the URL, on the home page of the app, they can click on Join and type in the meeting ID and password to gain entry.  Since the URLs work well and it doesn't cause more work for my attendees, I like the additional security that the password gives.  It's easier to Zoombomb a meeting that doesn't have a password, which is a much less lighthearted activity than that term would lead you to believe.  There have been Zoombombers who have hijacked Zoom meetings and shown nasty pictures or yelled racial slurs.  I'd just rather not have that happen.  Continuing through, I like to turn the video on for the host and participants and I choose to have both Telephone and Device Audio options available.  What that means is that if someone is having issues hearing or being heard with their computer or device audio, they can dial a number and participate with everyone using their phone for audio.  I've only had to use this a couple of times, but it's a nice option to have.  I don't enable the waiting room and I do allow people to join before the host.  If you enable a waiting room, you'll need to manually admit each person as they log on.  I like to just have everyone automatically join for most meetings.  You can choose whether anyone with the link can join or whether you only want those who have signed up with a Zoom account to join your meeting.  You can automatically record the video meeting AND you can assign additional hosts -- although truth be told, I've never gotten this to work for me.  Okay -- once you've done all that -- and believe me, it takes way less time the second time you do it -- hit Done.  Because I filled in a calendar, this calendar entry automatically comes up.  I usually just change the title slightly, since it's appearing on my family calendar and I hit Add.   These options are all the same on the computer, but I find it easier to do this from the device app.  Okay -- now that you have your meeting scheduled you want to 

Invite Attendees

Again, this is way faster from your device.  So, I'll show you again on my iPad.  Here we are on the home screen, choose Meetings from the options here.  Go to the meeting that you just scheduled and tap on it to open up.  Now hit Add invitees and you'll be able to choose between sending an email, sending a text, or copying the information.  Email is usually best since most folks have access to their email from all of their devices including their computers, which will give them maximum flexibility on where they want to launch Zoom to attend the meeting.  If you send a text, it's harder for most to access that from their computers.  So, the email comes up with everything filled in -- all you need to do is add email addresses.  You CAN do this from your computer, it's just quite as automatic.  It's takes a lot of clicks to do this from the Zoom website, but even from the Zoom software, the email invite doesn't automatically come up filled in -- you'll have to copy the invitation information, go to your email, paste it in, etc.  Okay -- now you've scheduled a meeting and invited your attendees.  Let's go through some of the fun

Zoom Features:

These I am showing you on my computer, because that's where I prefer to attend Zoom meetings.  The features are better and I like not having to prop the camera up to see the screen.  Move the cursor a bit to see your options.  I'll run through these fairly quickly.  First off, there are 2 different 

• Views for Zoom - Speaker view and Gallery view.  Speaker view shows whoever is speaking in a large square and everyone else in tiny squares.  Gallery view shows everyone in the same sized squares, Brady bunch style, and highlights the person speaking with a yellow/green outline.  To change this, up here click on this to toggle between views.  If you attend meetings from a computer, depending on your CPU, you can see up to 49 people in Gallery view.  On the iPad, you can see up to 9 and the view options are on the left.  iPhone users can only see 4 at one time.  Getting to Gallery view on a phone requires you to swipe to the left and back to the right to return to Speaker view.  Moving on -- down here you can toggle your own microphone off and on to mute yourself, same with your video camera.  Just to the right of the video camera is a little arrow that gets you to
• Video Settings - Here's where you can choose your virtual background.  Select Choose Virtual Background, make sure you already have an image saved to your computer or device, add it using this plus button here and viola -- you are in front of a green screen with a fun background behind you.  This works better in some light and with some backgrounds than others, so your mileage may vary.  I'm not going through all of these settings with you, but I will point out one other setting that I use.  Under Video, I check on Touch up my appearance.  This has the effect of photoshopping you a tiny bit so that it smooths out some of the wrinkles and lines.  Helpful for those of us over the age of 40.  The
• Security button allows you to change some of those things we talked about before -- you can lock down the meeting (preventing anyone else from gaining entrance), enable the waiting room so that you can check people in before they enter, and decide whether to allow your attendees to share their screen, chat, or rename themselves.  Pushing the
• Participants button brings up the participants panel.  It'll say Manage Participants if you are the host.  Normally, if you had a bigger meeting going on, you'd see all of the people listed.  As the host, you can determine whether you want to mute individual people (like if someone had some loud background noise going) or turn off their camera (I'll leave that situation to your imagination), you can mute everyone, or unmute them.  You can invite additional people from this panel and there are some additional options if you click the More button.  If you are a meeting participant and not the host, you can raise your hand here, which only the host can see.  This is great for big lectures or webcasts where you want to call on people rather than having them just shout out answers or questions.  You can also switch hosting from this panel.  Just hover over a participant and click More and you can make them the host.  I use this sometimes when I created the meeting, but need to leave it earlier than everyone else wants to.
• Share Screen - lets you share your screen with other people in the group.  You can share your whole computer screen, meaning whatever you bring up other people in your meeting can see.  Or you can limit it to just a screen of your choosing, like a PowerPoint presentation.  You can also share a whiteboard where you can draw and type or an iPhone or iPad if you have the plug-in for this.  If you look down here, you can check this box to share the sound from your computer.  Because Zoom is optimized for voice, sometimes music sounds terrible, so sharing the audio directly from your computer will work better.  You can use these
• Last 2 buttons - to record the meeting and add reactions.  If I click the clapping hands or thumbs up, that little emoji appears in my screen.  Apparently there is no way to give a thumbs down or other negative reaction.  

So, that's pretty much it.  We covered attending a Zoom meeting, scheduling one, inviting people to attend, and some Zoom features.  Let me know what you think.  Comments are always appreciated and thanks for watching.