How to Use Zoom to Teach on Outschool: Walkthrough, Tips, and Tricks

[@BrittanyFlammer]

Great tips!!! I struggle so much with technology too!!

[@TheTravelingTrainwreck]

Haha, I'm so glad I'm not the only one! Even in this video, it's obvious that I am technologically challenged 🙈 But maybe I'll encourage someone out there that if I can do it, they surely can too :)

[@rocio2917]

I love the idea of putting a class on 'private' to practice. I feel awkward with only practicing on one that looks different and has different features. Thank you!!

[@TheTravelingTrainwreck]

Hey Rocio, I agree! It helps so much to be able to practice with all the features just as they'll be in the actual classroom. I like to know exactly what I'll be dealing with in an actual class situation! Thanks so much for watching and commenting, hope this helped :)

[@rocio2917]

@@TheTravelingTrainwreck I got advice and an explanation of how to find a past class that was cancelled and use that to do private practice. I think it was pretty helpful.

[@carriejennifer5664]

Thank you for this video, Caity! Good tips!

[@TheTravelingTrainwreck]

Thanks, Carrie! I hope it helps some people out :) And hope you're enjoying teaching on Outschool. Thanks for watching!

[@Kitchflix]

Wow, just loved it a must try for sure, thnxs for sharing stay blessed n stay connected dear 😋😋😋

[@TheTravelingTrainwreck]

Thank you so much 👍

[@teacheraudrey1233]

Very helpful!

[@TheTravelingTrainwreck]

Thanks, Audrey! I'm glad it helped :)

[@MandyCrane]

I do need this video! Thank you.

[@TheTravelingTrainwreck]

Oh awesome, I hope it helps! Thanks for watching :)

[@moondiver8652]

great share 👍

[@TheTravelingTrainwreck]

Thank you! Cheers!

[@RebekahFOnlineTeaching]

Chatbox: I have one boy in my math class who is very shy and does not like to talk verbally, but he will type all his answers. I let his answers go to everyone so they can see him participate. But I see the wisdom why you would want them to only be able to chat with the host.

[@TheTravelingTrainwreck]

Hey Rebekah! That is a great example for when you would want to have the chat go to everyone! I was having trouble coming up with a good example, but I knew there were some situations when you might want it on that setting. That's a really good one!

[@BrittanyFlammer]

What did you use to do your screen recording? It looks great!

[@TheTravelingTrainwreck]

Thanks, Brittany! I just did the screen recording right on my Macbook Pro, and then had a second camera (my Sony DSLR) for the other parts of the video :)

[@BrittanyFlammer]

@@TheTravelingTrainwreck 🤣🤣

[@miriamdavis1682]

This is great! Very helpful. I'm nervous about teaching first class on Zoom and I'll have to watch this a couple times more. How do I get the participants to appear at the top of my screen? When I've been on a Zoom session, all the other participants appear on the right of my screen and so when I look at them, I'm not looking into the camera. I'm worried that this will be a problem when I teach. I thought it would help to have the learners appear right under the camera but not sure how to do that.

[@TheTravelingTrainwreck]

Thanks, Miriam! I’m sure you’ll do great on your first class! As far as the participants showing up on the screen, you can arrange it different ways - if you click at the top of the participants box and drag it to either the top or bottom of the screen, it should make the participants lined up in a row (at either the top or bottom of the screen, depending on where you dragged it.) There’s also a gallery view option and a few other choices you can play around with :)

[@miriamdavis1481]

@@TheTravelingTrainwreck My first class went very smoothly, and this video was very helpful in preparing me for it. Thank you so much!

[@TheTravelingTrainwreck]

@@miriamdavis1481 I’m so glad to hear that! Some of the Zoom features change slightly with computer updates, so that’s one thing to keep in mind, but I’m glad this helped, and am so happy that your first class went well!

[@RebekahFOnlineTeaching]

I thought the "spotlight my video when speaking" made whoever is speaking spotlighted (big) for everyone. This means the "big" person changes all the time. I have to manually spotlight myself in the classroom if I don't want the students to get big.

[@TheTravelingTrainwreck]

Hey there! I'll have to look into the spotlight feature a bit more. When I first started with Outschool, I watched someone else's video about Zoom and they had said to have the 'Spotlight my video' function checked in the settings, so that's what I did. I don't notice the 'big' video jumping around when I teach, although that did happen once right after I had gotten a new computer and hadn't changed my settings yet. Maybe there are differences depending on the version of Zoom you have (after I did a Zoom update, some things changed, too). I don't know, but I'm going to look into it some more. Definitely don't want any misinformation in my video! Thanks for watching, and for the comment :)

[@RebekahFOnlineTeaching]

@@TheTravelingTrainwreck now you have me curious too. I think the next time I do a class where I have my phone enrolled as a document camera, I will watch to see what happens on their screen as a participant.

[@RebekahFOnlineTeaching]

Although a phone will probably display something different than a computer would. phones and iPads work a little different than the big screens.