Before your meeting
Find a quiet and well lit space
Background noise can cause distractions and decrease your audio quality. Poorly lit spaces prevent you from showing up well on a webcam. Adjusting your surroundings before the session can improve your results greatly.
Test your Zoom setup
Test out Zoom in advance of your meeting to familiarize yourself with the software and test your audio and video setups. You can test your audio by going to https://zoom.us/test. You can adjust your audio and video settings within the test session as well. Encourage your meeting participants to test their setups in advance as well.
Use the best internet connection available to you
Use a private wired or wireless connection whenever possible for the best quality audio and video. Public Wifi or a cellular network may not always be fast enough for a smooth connection.
Setup your meeting to mute participants and hide video by default
Participants can turn on their microphones and webcams if they need to, but having them off by default minimizes confusion and allows participants to control when they are seen and heard.
Allow participants to join by Computer Audio or by Telephone
If desired, let participants join the meeting with Computer Audio or by telephone via a call in number. Having these options gives participants more flexibility should they encounter some type of technical issue.
During your meeting
Wear a headset/headphones/ear buds
This will help to avoid audio issues. If you do not wear some type of headset, the sound from your speakers may go back into the microphone and create a feedback loop or echo. Encourage participants to also wear a headset.
Use Zoom In-Meeting Chat
With a large class, it is efficient to have students ask questions and make comments within the text chat area. The instructor can answer questions as they come up throughout the presentation. If desired, the instructor can have the student unmute their microphone to ask the question aloud or provide more details.
Use non-verbal communication tools
The nonverbal tools allow students to raise their hand, respond yes or no, agree or disagree, and more without having to speak or type in the text chat. As the host, you can see all the students’ nonverbal responses at once in the Participants window to quickly see how the class is doing.
