Zoom Playgrounds

Welcome to Zoom Playgrounds

Are you a tactile learner looking for some hands-on training within the Zoom platform? Are you a new/returning faculty member looking for a way to practice with Zoom’s features before your upcoming live session? Are you curious about what your students see during your live sessions? Then slide on over to a Zoom Playground!

When attending a Zoom Playground session, a Faculty Trainer will provide a space where faculty can play with one to three features or processes in a Zoom classroom setting. You will engage in guided exercises as both a student and an instructor, to increase your level of comfort with utilizing the online classroom technology.

Register for a Zoom Playground:

Playground Topics

Breakout Rooms

What's covered:

      • Assign and shuffle participants into different breakout rooms

      • Adjust various setting options

      • Share information through the chat

      • Broadcast a message

      • Experience the “Ask for Help” notification

      • Visit breakout rooms in session

      • End a breakout session

Screen and Video Sharing

What's covered:

      • Share your screen

      • Share a video with sound

      • Pause screen sharing

      • Open and share a document on your computer

      • Open the chat and participants list while screen sharing

      • Move and adjust the webcam view as both host and participant

      • As host, stop a participants share

WhiteboardS & Annotations

What's covered:

      • Share a whiteboard

      • Annotate on the whiteboard using different shapes, colors, and texts as both host and participant

      • Select, move, and adjust whiteboard drawings and texts

      • Delete and undo an annotation

      • Use the spotlight function

      • Save whiteboard annotations and locate them on your computer

Video Settings & Virtual backgrounds

What's covered:

      • Review the requirements for using a virtual background

      • Use a default virtual background

      • Add an image as a custom virtual background

      • See what backdrops work best with virtual backgrounds

      • Rotate a webcam image

      • Review various other video settings and their functions

Cloud Documents

What's covered:

      • Review the different types of cloud documents

      • Share a cloud document with others

      • Add comments and tag someone to a specific section of a cloud document

      • View edits as they occur in real time

Polling Options

What's covered:

      • Practice using Google Forms for polling

      • Practice using the whiteboard for polling

      • Review using the chat for polling

      • Review third party polling applications

Security

What's covered:

      • Disabling students’ ability to screen share

      • Disabling students’ ability to annotate over presentations

      • Disabling the chat

      • Stopping a student’s webcam during class