What it is possible to do with Zoom depends on the settings were chosen when the meeting was created. Here is a brief overview of the most common functions that appear in Zoom, along with how they are presented. Please keep in mind, depending on the settings of your host, the functions you see may vary.

Picture showing the different functions of Zoom

1. View

Here you can chose your preferred display for the meeting. If you chose 'gallery view' you will see an overview of all the participants videos, whereas if you chose 'speaker' view you will only see the video of the person who is currently talking. You can change your view settings at any time during your meeting.

2. Turn your microphone on and off

3. Turn your camera on and off

4. See who is present at the meeting

5. Chat

In the chat you can send messages to everyone in the meeting or just one specific person. The content of the chats will disappear when the meeting is ended. Please note that if a meeting is being recorded, then all of the chats will also be recorded in transcript form: including chats sent privately (between only two people).

6. Share screen

You can share your screen with other participants and show your PowerPoint or a webpage open on your computer. Your screen sharing capacities should be locked: if you move between pages, Zoom will continue to share only the page that you selected. To share a new page, exit screen-sharing mode and start again. Note: although Zoom should not share anything that you do not expressly choose, good practice is to never have any tabs open that you would be embarrassed to accidentally screen share. After all, some mishaps are inevitable.

7. Record

There is a possibility to record meetings, but as a participant you can not do this without host approval. When the host choose to record a meeting information appears on the screen for all participants, and you get the choice of approving the recording or leaving the meeting.

8. Reactions

Here you can react to what is said with an emoji, raise your hand to ask a question, and answer Yes/No to questions posed by the teacher.

Breakout Rooms

When the teacher wants to use Breakout Rooms this function will be seen in your menu and will be called 'Breakout Rooms'. You can enter a room either by being assigned one by your teacher, or by yourself choosing which room to enter.

When you get a Breakout Room assigned to you:

When your teacher assigns you to a Breakout Room, a dialog box will appear. You need to press 'Join' to be taken to the room.

Picture showing breakoutrooms

When you Choose to Join a Room by Yourself:

Other times you might be asked by the teacher to chose your own breakout room. You then have to press the 'Breakout Rooms' button in your Zoom menu located at the bottom of the display.

Picture showing breakoutrooms

When you have clicked on the button, a list of all the rooms you can join will appear. By moving your cursor over the number of participants in each room a small bubble will appear, asking you if you want to join this room. Click on 'Yes' to join. Note: in the picture below, the number of participants in each room is '0'.

Picture showing breakoutrooms

Leaving a Breakout Room

In some cases you will automatically be removed from a breakout room when the teacher closes the rooms. If you need to leave the room by yourself, however, you should press the 'Leave Room' button. You will get the choice to either leave the meeting, or leave the breakout room. Here you should press 'Leave Breakout Room' and you will return to the main Zoom meeting. However, if you click on 'Leave Meeting' you will leave the meeting completely.

Picture showing breakoutrooms

Picture showing breakoutrooms