Zoom
Zoom is Deakin’s recommended platform for online classes and seminars. It supports active and interactive learning and is fully integrated with CloudDeakin. Additionally, Zoom offers a range of features such as breakout rooms, screen sharing, and real-time polling, which can enhance the overall learning and teaching experience.
Zoom allows users to:
- host interactive synchronous online sessions for up to 500 participants
- enhanced breakout features including chat, screen share and audio sharing
- engage users in workshops via polls, whiteboards, and non-verbal feedback
AI elements
Zoom leverages a combination of AI technologies designed to process and interpret visual and auditory information, as well as text, to enhance the user experience.
Zoom enables you to enhance the teaching and learning experience by providing the options for engaging discussions, interactive lectures, and collaborative activities regardless of location.
List of functions
Key features of Zoom are:
- Zoom integration with CloudDeakin to simplify the process of scheduling, joining, and managing Zoom workshops;
- Screen sharing with advanced functioanlity to share sound;
- Virtual backgrounds that can be personalised or AI-generate;
- Automatically recorded to the cloud;
- Chat functionality with the use of emojis;
- Whiteboard to annotate key ideas in workshops;
- Screen annotation allows participants to draw, highlihgt, and add text directly to a shared screen; and
- Digital polling enables the host to conduct polls during Zoom meetings.
Recommendations for Zoom are:
- Active learning: design activities throughout your workshop to actively engage students through breakout rooms, polling, and chat functionality.
- Collaborative learning: the whiteboard features enable students to visually co-construct knowledge through problem-solving and brainstorming activities.
Support resources
Deakin Resources:
Using Zoom for teaching and learning: an industry-based communication tool, Zoom can be leveraged in teaching and learning for active and collaborative learning. Follow this guide to explore how this can be done for your context.
Zoom in CloudDeakin: learn how to set up your Zoom LTI for your scheduled Zoom session.
Vendor Resources:
Zoom Learning Centre: explore Zoom’s self-paced learning centre that takes you through the features and functionality. Please note: some features may not be enabled at Deakin.
Examples
The use cases below showcase some ways in which you can use Zoom in your practice:
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Knowledge Acquisition
Scheduled classes or seminars – offer synchronous (set time) online sessions to introduce, present, and discuss content
As a teacher I want to present new content or discuss core concepts at scheduled times, promote student interaction with their new knowledge, promote interaction with and between students, and build a sense of connection during the session.
My students can see and hear their teacher while following the presentation, interact with activities to help understand core concepts, raise their hands to ask questions, post responses to questions in the chat area, and benefit from their peers also asking questions.
Example design considerations when presenting new content using Zoom:
- Think about how you will check in with your students, i.e. are they keeping up with and can they understand the new content presented. For example:
- pose direct questions and seek student responses
- guide students to ask/answer questions via hand raising and/or chat
- use reactions/emoticons as a class check-in mechanism.
- Design activities for student active engagement with content, such as:
- use in-built Zoom polls and interactive whiteboards
- prepare presentation slides using another interactive tool such as Mentimeter
- use Zoom breakout rooms for student group discussions around core concepts, to then return to the main room and share outcomes and/or ask key questions from each group.
- Record scheduled Zoom sessions so that students can review the content (or catch up if they missed the session). Zoom is integrated with CloudDeakin so recorded sessions will automatically be uploaded to the unit site.
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Discussion
Synchronous discussion – guide and enable student-student and student-teacher discussion
As a teacher I want students to discuss content and core concepts with me and with their peers, in real-time.
My students can articulate and test key ideas around unit content with teachers and peers, and can challenge each other while building their knowledge through robust discussion.
Example design considerations for learning through discussion using Zoom:
- Prepare a purposeful discussion task.
- Determine whether whole of class or group discussion is appropriate for the learning activity and the cohort size, to enable all students to actively participate.
- Use Zoom breakout rooms for group discussions and then bring groups back together to share summarised discussion findings. You can:
- pre-assign students to breakout rooms or allocate them randomly or manually in the session
- return people back to same discussion groups or to a new mix for subsequent discussion
- move between breakout rooms to help facilitate the discussion.
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Collaboration
Collaborative communications – create a real-time collaborative communication environment
As a teacher I want to facilitate small group work in synchronous sessions to promote collaborative learning.
My students can work in small groups to discuss key ideas with their peers and build their connections within their cohort while working on purposeful activities or project work.
Example design considerations for collaborative learning using Zoom:
- Use breakout rooms to provide collaborative spaces for groups to discuss a team project or to develop a response to an activity.
- Students may be more likely to use their video and audio options in smaller group settings, to be more visibly/audibly present.
- Enable Zoom features such as the interactive whiteboard to allow students to annotate or express ideas in free-form ways.
- Encourage student-led Zoom discussion groups, i.e. to schedule their own Zoom group meetings to collaborate on their learning activity or project.
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Production
Product development presentation – students record their product development to share with others as evidence
As a teacher I want students to develop presentations to demonstrate the development of their discipline-relevant products (e.g. plan, design, model, project, data, report, object, performance, art, or the presentation itself), and to deliver their presentations synchronously to demonstrate and share their conceptual understanding.
My students can deliver their presentations synchronously to demonstrate their conceptual understanding and reflect on their own and others practice in the varied product development processes.
Example design considerations for product development presentations using Zoom:
- Give clear guidance on what is required of the student presentations (e.g. assessment criteria, scheduled times, practice in screen sharing in Zoom).
- Motivate students to generate a representation of their learning and to articulate their thinking, i.e. some freedom to present in a way they can best represent their product development allowing flexibility for student preferences/inclusivity but still sharable via Zoom.
- Encourage peer interaction through applause, and/or using audio or chat features, for allocated students or student groups to provide feedback and ask questions of the presenting student/student group.
- Practice
Demonstrate techniques, procedures, or skills – teacher and/or student demonstration
As a teacher I want to demonstrate techniques, procedures, or skills for my students, confident that they have a ‘front row seat’ to maximise viewing, and if required, I can ask my students to demonstrate back to me.
My students can watch a demonstration in real-time and direct questions to the teacher, turn their video/audio on if they’d like to volunteer to demonstrate, and re-watch the recording as many times as required.
Example design considerations when demonstrating techniques using Zoom:
- Offer students opportunities to clarify if they understand the demonstration, such as:
- repeat the demonstration from another camera angle
- allow students to ask questions via audio or chat
- ask one or more students to volunteer to repeat the demonstration as they understand it, and guide them as required, so other students benefit from this additional, vicarious, and visible coaching
- offer students who are struggling with the demonstration a one-to-one Zoom session to coach them through the procedure and provide direct feedback on their practice.
- Check automated captions/transcripts for Zoom recorded demonstrations and correct any misleading errors.
