Overview

The person who schedules or starts the Zoom meeting is the host. To run the meeting smoothly, the host of the meeting has more controls available to them than a participant. Individuals invited to a Zoom meeting join as participants. Participants have basic controls available to them during the meeting.

Host Controls

When hosting a meeting or teaching a class, you can engage participants using features such as:

• Share Screen to present materials

• Chat to allow participants to ask questions without interrupting the speaker

• Whiteboard to annotate or draw on screen

• Breakout rooms to divide into smaller discussion groups

• Polling to quickly ask the attendees for input to simple questions

Useful controls to manage and run the meeting include:

• Muting everyone and disabling participants from unmuting themselves

• Restricting who and when people can share their screen

• Restricting who attendees can chat with, e.g. turn off chat between participants

• Locking the meeting

Control Panel

From left to right, the host has options for Audio, Video, Security, Participants, Chat, Share Screen, Record, Live Transcript, Breakout Rooms, Reactions, and More.

The default setting in Zoom is to have the control panel disappear from view after several seconds of inactivity. Move your mouse or tap your screen to bring the control panel back into view. You can change the default setting so the control panel is always in view. Open the Zoom desktop app, then select the gear icon in the top right corner to open Settings. Under General, check the box for Always show meeting controls.

For information on Record, Live Transcript, and Breakout Rooms, please review the documentation on the Digital Support Site.

Mute/Unmute Audio

Select the microphone icon to mute or unmute your microphone. See Manage Participants and Feedback below for how to mute/unmute participants.

Start/Stop Video

Select the video camera icon to turn your video on or off. See Manage Participants and Feedback below for information on managing participants’ videos.

Security

There are multiple options to choose from when securing your meeting. Select the Shield icon to open in-meeting security settings. To learn more about securing your meeting before it starts, please see the Security section of the Digital Support Site.

Lock Meeting: Prevents anyone new from joining the meeting in progress.

Enable Waiting Room: New participants to an in-progress meeting will be funneled to the Waiting Room, where they must be admitted manually.

Hide Profile Pictures: When a participant turns off their video, their display name will fill their panel rather than their chosen profile picture.

Allow Participants to Share Screen, Chat, Rename Themselves, Unmute Themselves, Start Video:

• Participants who are not the host can share their screen.

• Participants can chat with everyone or send messages to individual participants.

• Participants can change their name to something other than their registered Zoom name.

• Participants can take themselves off mute and be heard by all participants.

• Participants can turn their video on and be seen by all participants.

Remove Participant: Opens the participants panel and allows you to selectively remove individual participants.

One security feature of particular importance is Suspend Participant Activities. This option immediately stops all Zoom activity but keeps the meeting open. This feature is designed to stop “Zoom crashers” (known colloquially as Zoombombers, but this is not the preferred terminology at Smith) in the shortest amount of time possible.

Manage Participants and Feedback

During a meeting or class session, there are several ways you can control or engage participants. Select the Participants icon to open the participants panel.

You will see a list of everyone who is currently in the meeting, along with anyone currently in the waiting room (if enabled). If a participant has raised their hand or selected any other form of nonverbal feedback, you will be able to see the icon next to their name.

If their hand is raised, you can lower it. Hover over their name and select Lower Hand.

At the bottom of the Participants panel, you can:

• Invite additional people to the meeting.

• Mute All participants.

• Select More to open additional options like Mute All Upon Entry and Play Join and Leave Sound.

If you need to ask a participant to start their video or you need to turn off a participant’s video, hover over their name in the participants panel and select More. Select either Ask to Start Video or Stop Video, if necessary.

Manage In-Meeting Chat

The chat feature in Zoom allows participants and hosts to send text-only messages during a meeting. The host ultimately controls with whom meeting participants can chat. Select the Chat icon to open the chat panel.

Select the ellipses button at the bottom of the panel to change the chat option.

Share Your Screen

If you need to share your screen during a meeting or class, select the green Share Screen icon.

A pop-up window will open. You can share your entire desktop, individual browser windows or specific applications, the virtual whiteboard (recommended to use with a tablet), an iPhone or iPad screen via AirPlay (macOS or Windows), or an iPhone or iPad via cable (macOS only). Select the blue Share button in the lower right corner.

Pro Tip: If participants need to be able to hear sound from what you’re sharing, then check the box in the bottom left for Share sound. If you are going to be sharing video clips (i.e. YouTube or Moodle videos), then check the box for Optimize for video clips.

When you are done sharing, or if someone else needs to share their screen, select Stop Share from the floating toolbar.

Pro tip: you can click-and-drag the floating toolbar around your screen.

Co-Host Options

A host can assign another person limited host controls during the meeting. They will not have the full abilities of a host, but they can do things like admit participants from the waiting room and mute participants.

To designate a co-host during the meeting, hover over their name and select More, then Make Co-Host.

For a comparison of host and co-host abilities, see Zoom’s chart of roles.

If you need to leave the meeting but do not want the meeting to end, you will need to

assign someone else as the host. Select More next to the participant’s name, then Make Host.

Additional Resources

Remember to keep your Zoom app up to date! Some features, such as being able to participate in breakout rooms, will not work properly if your app is out of date. See Updating the Zoom Desktop App for more.

Check the Workshops tab for Faculty/Instructors on the Digital Support Site for opportunities to practice hands-on with ITS experts before the semester begins.