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Zoom is an online meeting tool that allows you to meet with anyone who has a device and an internet connection. The three most popular ways to view your Zoom meeting are as a host on a computer, as a guest on a computer, or as a guest on a phone. It is possible to host a Zoom meeting on a phone, but it is much easier on a computer.
This post includes videos to show you Zoom in each of the three most popular ways.
Introduction to the Zoom Screen – Viewing as the Host
Transcript of Introduction to Zoom Meeting as a Host
(00:00):
Hey everybody, it’s Kim Shivler. Welcome. A few years ago I taped a Zoom video and did a blog post on using Zoom as a way to deliver information during an online course. Well, right now where we are in the world, it is April 24th, 2020 and so many people are home. We’re at a uh, shelter in place for many of us because of the coronavirus. So many people I know are now doing Zoom meetings who’ve never done online meetings before. I’ve been using Zoom for many years as well as other meeting platforms and webinar platforms, which I will share with you in the future. But for now let’s just cover Zoom because it seems to be the one that a lot of people are using. One of the things, if you’re new to Zoom, I wanted to share with you is what you’re seeing here along the bottom of the screen and depending on how you move around your screen, sometimes that can jump around.
(01:07): – Introducing The Options Zoom Menu on the Bottom of the Screen
So on our reactions, people can give reactions to things during a Zoom. We can record a Zoom, we can record either on a computer or in the cloud. I don’t know if the free version has much of that option. So I am using a professional paid version. I’m using the $14.99 a month, which is their basic version. I also have their webinar platform, which is another $40 a month. And I’ll share that platform along with the differences in a future video. I can share my screen, which I’m actually, uh, I do sometimes with people. In fact, whenever I’m teaching I share my screen so I can show people how we do things. Or you can also, when you share your screen, uh, share a PowerPoint presentation or a Keynote presentation, whatever your presentation software is. The thing I recommend people do when you come into a Zoom is click here where it says chat and open up the group chat. This allows people during the meetings, so say I’m speaking or I’m teaching someone speaking in the meeting. This allows people to actually chat during the meeting. You can chat to everyone or you can actually chat to a specific person. There’s only me in the meeting right this minute. So that’s just, um, I don’t have any other options. Let me go ahead and log in on my other desktop,
(02:51):
and then I’ll show you what it looks like when there’s more than one person in the room.
(03:03): Admitting a Person into Your Zoom Meeting
I’m not going to put the video on on that one.
(03:07):
Okay, so now what you’re seeing is someone is trying to come in the room. It has alerted me here that Kim Shivler or my other account has entered the waiting room for the meeting. I can look at the waiting room and see it and I can remove them if this is not somebody we know or I can admit them.
(03:31): Using the Zoom Chat Functionality
So now what we would see in the chat is that we can talk to individuals as opposed to just to everybody in the group chat notice here I also have the opportunity or the option where I can mute people. And actually I’m going to mute myself over there because I don’t need to be picking this up twice. And so the host can mute or cancel video if desired. Now I’m going to go ahead and leave the meeting over here cause we don’t need that for right now. So if we want to leave the meeting, you can see we just ended the meeting. Well I would be ending the meeting. Normally you would see it leave the meeting. Now down here you will notice I can stop my video. I’ve got that option here. Now sometimes you don’t have the choice to start the video. If the host creates a meeting and it doesn’t allow people to show video, then you won’t have the option to show your video.
(04:39): Mute Yourself when not Speaking
But if you are doing one like many times in a networking meeting, then there is the ability to stop and start your video and then you can mute yourself. So I recommend in meetings, if you’re not talking to go ahead and mute yourself that way, if your phone rings or anything no one is picking up that background noise. You also notice you have an option here to choose a virtual background. Now I don’t believe I can do that on this one. Um, and we were going to check, I think this a computer won’t do it. Let’s see. Yup. It doesn’t meet the requirements. So if you have a newer computer, yes, I know I’m a technology instructor, but I have an older iMac and it just reached the point where it can’t upgrade anymore and I have to get a new one and I haven’t done it yet.
(05:32):
But if you could, you can actually select one of these videos or grab your, uh, if you have a green screen, you can create your own videos. We’re not going, excuse me, your own backgrounds. We’re not going to cover that here. So that’s the quick overview. Now you can also see how many participants are in the room and if you click on it, you see who those participants are. If you’re not the host. So I’m the host, you won’t have the “mute all” and “unmute all” option. Um, and depending on what the settings are, you may or may not be able to invite other people. So these are host options that, for example, a lot of times what I’ll do is I will mute people as they enter and that’s because, for example, say we’re in a meeting and 10 people are in the meeting and maybe we’ve already started the meeting and some people are coming in late.
(06:29):
A lot of times as they come in and they’re banging on their microphone or whatever, it makes a lot of noise. So if we keep them muted until they’re actually ready to speak, it makes it makes it flow a little easier. We don’t get as much of an interruption. Now from the security standpoint, this is a new feature and that’s because Zoom has had some security issues and they’ve received some criticism for that. My thought of that is, first of all, understand if you are online, you’re never 100% secure. They are working to fix them and this is one of the things they’ve done. This company went from 20 million people (customers) to 200 million in a couple of weeks time. So yes, there’s going to be growing pains and if we threw out every piece of software that ever had a security issue, no one would be using Outlook by Microsoft or many of the other applications that are out there because many of them have had security glitches at different times.
(07:33):
So I’m applauding you Zoom for working to get them fixed and one of the things they have done is, first of all, what’d you may not know is the link you received is actually my disc is getting full. That’s cause I keep taping all these videos. Um, and I’ve got to get them edited so I can get them off to my bigger disc. I they are taking efforts on the security and one of the things they’ve done is when you receive a link to a Zoom meeting, there is actually a password encoded in that link. If you try to just join a meeting by a meeting ID, if someone gives you, this is my meeting room and they just give you an ID, you will be prompted to enter the password as the meeting host. I have to admit people into the room. And once we are here, if I want to, I can lock the meeting so then no one else can join.
(08:38):
So is it 100% secure? I’m sure it’s not. Nothing is, but, um, I think they’re doing a good job. It is still great and they’re really offering a lot of this for free. So there’s always a free. There has always a free option for Zoom. However, just so you know, a lot of these features are not in the free option. You can’t, I think you can only have four people normally in the free, and they’ve allowed the 50 you’re pretty much what they’re doing right now is for free. They’re still, they’re giving you almost everything the basic paid has. So that’s it for this quick introduction to Zoom. If you have questions, just email me, kim@kimshivler.com and I’m happy to answer them. I look forward to seeing you soon in another video or maybe on a Zoom meeting. Bye.
Joining a Zoom Meeting as a User from Your Desktop Computer
Transcript of Using Zoom as a Guest from Your Computer Desktop
(00:00):
Hey everybody. It’s Kim Shivler. Welcome. In this video, I’m actually going to show you what it looks like to join Zoom as a participant. In the last video, I showed it to you as the meeting host and this is I’ve received an invitation. Now sometimes people just send you the link, which can be a problem because if you want to dial in on the phone, you need the dial in numbers and ID, etc. So if somebody sends you the full invitation, this is what it looks like. Now you will notice that the meeting has an ID and a password. However, if you’re going to use the link, notice that the password is built into that link so you won’t have to stop and enter it. If you try to join, someone just says it’s your meeting, their meeting ID. You go to Zoom and enter the ID. You will have to add the password. This is new because of the security issues they’ve had recently because so many people have joined the platform. So I clicked on that. It wants me to open Zoom. I’m going to do that and as I launch it gives me the option to join with or without video. Now if the host has configured it to where you can’t have video, you will not have be able to change this, but for this case the host is allowing me to join it with video,
(01:46): Wait for the Host to Let you Into the Meeting
and here’s what you’ll see next, “Please wait. The host will let you in soon.” If you’ll remember from the other video as the host, I see a note that someone’s waiting to enter the room and I click on “Admit” to admit them
(02:03): You’ll Have Few Options as a Guest than as a Host in the Meeting
and now I’ve come into the room, so the top little one you’re seeing me here at my desk and the side view is actually me over on my laptop, which is where I’m technically running the meeting from. You can see that there are two participants and if you’ll remember, I always recommend that we open chat so that we can chat with each other during meetings. You can do that private to everyone or privately to someone in the group. Now you will notice that you don’t have as many options here as you have when you are the host, for example, you don’t have the security option where you can lock the room. The host has special options. Makes sense, right? That’s all there is to join this way. Now next, I’m going to show you what it’s like to join on a phone.
Setting Gallery View
Oh, I did want to show you one other thing I didn’t share in the other video. If you have a lot of people and you want to do gallery view where everybody’s lined up, kind of like the Brady Bunch, you just click on gallery view here. If you want to go back to where the speaker is highlighted, you can go back to speaker view. So you’ve got the speaker. This is your option on how you work with it. I’m Kim Shivler. I’ll see you in the next video when we look at joining from the phone. Bye.
Looking at Zoom from the iPhone
Transcript of Joining a Zoom Meeting Using Your iPhone
(00:01):
Hey everybody. It’s Kim Shivler. Welcome. In this quick video, I’m going to show you how to join a Zoom meeting on an iPhone. Now, I personally really prefer the desktop version of this. However, if you just have an iPhone, that’s the only way you can connect or you have a Android. I believe Android, I don’t have one to show you or an iPad. You can use Zoom. You have to download the app just as you do when you use it from your desktop and then you’re going to join. Now I have texted the information to myself so that I can join the meeting and it wants to access my camera. Okay. I’m going to let it wants me to update. I guess we’re updating.
(01:02):
Well, I did update already. I don’t know what happened there, but sometimes those things happen. It has now brought us here and we can join with the video, so I’m going to do you know I’m going to join without the video. I don’t like the video on my phone. I don’t like my way. I look on video on the phone. All right. It wants to access the microphone, which I will, um, go ahead and do, although we’re not going to hear me cause I have, I have my microphone, my uh, headphones in and you’ll notice it’s telling me to wait. The meeting host will let me in soon. This is what you’re always going to see because it’s one of the security features they’ve added recently since they’ve been having some challenges and we’re now connected. So, um,
(02:04):
All right, it says to join the audio. So I’m going to go ahead and use the internet audio you could have dialed in. Also, remember when we looked at the invitation, there was a phone number, but as long as you have internet, you can just do it this way. And now this is what I see. Now you’ll notice it looks a little different if you want to get to things like chat and participants in all what you do is you touch the screen and then it’ll show up on the bottom. So you’ve got mute. So I can mute myself. I could start my video, I can share content, I can see the other participants. And then close that and I can chat. Okay. Now the challenge with the chat here is you can’t actually just keep it open the way you can keep it open when you’re on the bigger screen and you’ve got more room. So that’s just something to know. Now, if, if someone sends a chat, you’ll see it at the bottom, but it does still show and come up. But if you want to actually get into chat, that’s when you have to go down click, you’ll see that one is available. You can see that it’s a chat available
(03:28):
and you see the chat. Those are the basics of using Zoom on your phone. If you want to leave when you tap, notice that instead of at the bottom the way it is when you’re on the desktop. Your leave option is here at the top. So I can now leave the meeting. I hope that helps. Let me know. If you have questions, you can reach me at kim@kimshivler.com I look forward to seeing you next time. Bye.