10 New Zoom Features
to Enhance Your Teaching
and Better Engage Your Students
Join the webinar on February 15th 10:00 am - 11:00 am (EST) where Dr. Ron Owston will explain how you can apply these new Zoom features to your teaching!
1. Closed captioning.
Topping the list is the introduction of automatic live closed captioning of meetings. This feature brings a significant benefit to your students who are hearing impaired. It also allows all learners to experience a meeting by not only hearing what is said, but reading what is spoken. This will appeal to those who learn better visually than orally. Learners also can set the size of the captions, which will help students with visual impairment.
When captioning is turned on, a full transcript of the meeting is produced that learners can save and use to review class discussions or presentations. A relatively inexpensive add-on is available for paid Zoom account holders that can simultaneously translate captions from a speaker in any of 12 languages to a listener in any other of these languages. This feature offers exciting opportunities for international students, English language learners and guest speakers to participate in a class.
See Zoom video for more information on this feature.
2. Enhanced whiteboard.
Since the early days of Zoom, a built-in whiteboard has been available but its features and versatility were limited. A much-enhanced whiteboard became available in 2022, offering endless opportunities for collaboration, brainstorming and creativity for either the whole class or breakout groups.
Whiteboards are created live during class or prepared in advance and imported into a meeting. Zoom offers a series of templates with themes such as brainstorming and ideation, icebreakers and team building, mapping and diagramming, and strategy and planning to speed up whiteboard creation. You have the option of allowing students to access whiteboards created in class after a meeting, and you can either restrict whiteboards to viewing only or allow anyone to edit them.
See Zoom video for more information on this feature.
3. Blurred background.
One often-cited reason learners turn off their video during class meetings is they feel their privacy is invaded when others see their surroundings. With the blurred background feature turned on, you and your learners can now feel more comfortable. Another reason to use it may be to make your presentations appear more professional.
You choose the blurred background feature from the Zoom app in the same location as picture backgrounds, under Settings >Backgrounds & Effects. While on the topic of backgrounds, you will notice the quality of your video image is better now, with fewer jaggies and halo effects when using either blurring or a picture background.
See Zoom support article for more details.
4. PowerPoint background.
When using PowerPoint (or Keynote) for a presentation, you can now superimpose your video image onto your slides. This feature has been available for more than a year in a Beta test version, and is now a fully functioning option in Zoom. The option is much more engaging than showing slides with the default small Zoom video window in the upper corner. By enabling a PowerPoint background, you can point to items on slides just like you might do in a room when standing in front of a whiteboard or projection screen, thereby making your presentation feel more immersive.
You create a PowerPoint background during a meeting via screen sharing, not through the app as you do for picture backgrounds. After opening screen sharing, you click on the Advanced tab to choose it. Once your image is on the screen, you have the option to resize and move it anywhere on the screen.
See Zoom video for more information on this feature.
5. Poll enhancements.
Polls are a handy tool for educators to quickly survey, for example, how well learners understand course concepts before proceeding to the next topic, how they feel about certain issues, quick quizzes, or for icebreakers at the beginning of class. Earlier versions of Zoom required you to log into the Zoom web portal first to create or modify polls, and polls were attached to meetings so re-using them was awkward. These pain points are now gone.
From the Poll icon on the Zoom meeting toolbar, you now have the option to create or modify a poll. You can also archive polls in your own library and have them available for future meetings. This is an excellent feature if you want regular feedback about your course, for example. Another new feature is the ability to create matching, ranked choice, short answer, or long answer questions. These options are handy for creating quizzes or getting detailed feedback. Another new feature is the option to add images to polls, which opens many new possibilities for creating engaging polls and quizzes.
See Zoom video for more information on this feature.
6. Focus mode.
Focus mode is designed to spotlight only you when making a presentation. You will see all your learners’ videos, but they won’t see each other. Learners see only the names of others attending class as well as their own video. The purpose of focus mode is to ensure learners aren’t distracted by others’ videos.
You have the choice of when to enter focus mode. You can do it anytime during a meeting from the tool bar by clicking on More and selecting Start Focus Mode. Alternatively, you can set up focus mode in advance of a meeting, so you automatically enter the mode at the start of the meeting. This is done at the Zoom web portal when you create a new meeting.
See Zoom video for more information on this feature.
7. Zoom apps.
Zoom apps are tools developed mostly by third-party companies that fully integrate into meetings or webinars to enhance Zoom’s capabilities. (Zoom apps should not be confused with apps you download to use Zoom on mobile devices or desktop computers.) There is a wide range of relevant apps available for educators, including apps for collaboration, surveying/quizzing, ice-breaking and breakout room facilitation. Check out the Zoom App Marketplace where you can discover an ever-growing list of apps tailored for education, as well as other purposes such as entertainment, business and productivity. You will likely recognize many of the app names, including Kahoot, SurveyMonkey, Prezi, Moodle, Canvas and Coursera.
Zoom apps can be downloaded from the Marketplace or by clicking the Apps icon in the meeting toolbar. Some apps are free, some offer trial time-limited usage and others require a fee. Once they are installed you can access them anytime by clicking on the App icon. A simple app to try out for the first time is Timer. As the name implies, this app is for timing the length of meetings by counting down the time limit you set.
See Zoom support article for more information.
8. Meeting templates.
If you are teaching multiple classes, sections or courses, a recent enhancement to the Zoom web portal is the option to create a meeting template. This feature allows you to save all your preferred settings (e.g., require a password, video/sound off at beginning, enable waiting room, automatically record the meeting) as a template. Then when you create your next course meetings you can use the template to avoid having to set your preferences for each meeting. You can save up to 40 templates with different preferences for different course types (e.g., small classes, large classes, graduate classes).
Templates, which are a significant time-saver, are easy to set up. They are created by scheduling a new meeting with the settings you desire and saving the meeting. Then you have the option Save as Template at the bottom of the screen. Every time you want to schedule a new meeting you can use the template and you just need to enter the time to create the meeting. You can also use templates for recurring meetings if you want to set up all your classes in advance.
See Zoom support article for more information.
9. Communicating with breakout rooms.
Until recently, once learners moved into breakout rooms, communicating with them as a group was difficult because you could only send a text message to all groups. Two new enhancements overcome this limitation.
First, you can now broadcast your voice to all breakout groups if you want to give learners, for example, additional instructions for their group activities or make an announcement that they must return to the main meeting room. You do this by simply holding down the B key on your keyboard or clicking on the Broadcast button in the breakout room control box.
The second way you can communicate is to share your screen with all groups. There is now a checkbox for screen sharing to breakout groups, which you see after clicking on the Screen Sharing icon. This is handy if you want to show learners a slide or document containing group instructions. Note your webcam video will not be shared when doing this. If you want to broadcast your voice while sharing, hold down the B key.
See Zoom support article for more information.
10. End of meeting survey.
This feature allows you to have a survey automatically appear at the end of a meeting. For example, you can ask if learners want more time spent on the topic in the next class, if the pace of the class was appropriate, or to reflect on an aspect of the class with a “one-minute paper.” You have the choice of single- or multiple-choice questions, rating scales and written responses. Responses can be optional or required.
Surveys are created at the Zoom web portal. Once your meeting is scheduled, click on edit and scroll to the bottom of the page. Here you’ll see the Survey button (which is not to be confused with the Polls/Quizzes button). After clicking on this button, you can create your survey. Note there is also an option to link to an external survey tool, such as SurveyMonkey, if you prefer a non-Zoom tool.
You retrieve the survey results from the web portal by clicking on Account Management and then look for meeting reports. If you don’t see this option, ask your account administrator to grant you access.
See Zoom support article for more information.
What to Expect in 2023
In 2023, Zoom’s focus is to create a one-stop integrated environment for meetings, chat, team collaboration, smart physical rooms for hybrid meetings, and Zoom phone. Zoom very recently announced its own email and calendar tools, and will also integrate Microsoft Office 365 and Google email and calendars. Some campuses are transitioning to this new environment, but most educators will continue to use only Zoom meetings and webinars.
Enhancements to Zoom meetings already announced include:
Addition of more languages into automatic captioning
Smart meeting recordings that will automatically produce chapters, summaries and highlights
Pre-set templates for different sizes and types of meetings that provide recommended settings that can also be customized
In-meeting chat enhancements that will include @mentions to other participants, threaded conversations and new emojis to react to messages
Zoom Whiteboard Plus, an extra cost add-on, which will give additional features such as unlimited concurrent whiteboards and custom templates
A summary of upcoming features announced in November 2022 at Zoomtopia, Zoom’s annual conference, is available. Be sure to keep upgrading your Zoom desktop client to take advantage of the latest innovations as they are released — and make sure you ask your learners to do the same.
