Looking for a way to meet each other remotely or bring a full class together?

Try out Zoom! Zoom is a video communications tool, with an easy, reliable cloud platform for video and audio conferencing. You should make sure any meetings held are set to private not public and, as always, don’t click on any links unless you’re 100% certain who you got the link from and where it goes. It shouldn’t be used for file transfer, data transfer or chat facilities as these forms of data are not covered by GDPR and the chat function goes public for anyone to see.

 

Security… is paramount. There’s been some negative press which the CEO of Zoom has indicated have mainly been rectified now. Do ensure when the meeting is created it’s not in ‘open’ or ‘public’ format as you risk security and being trolled. Also, there are many images of Zoom on twitter where the public ID was visible so it’s always good to be mindful of that too.

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Why use Zoom rather than any other platform?

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Zoom is ideal for classrooms or meetings up to 100 people at any one time. Although stable and produces great quality video calls, the free version has a 40 minute limit. You can however set up other 40 minute sessions straight afterwards.  You can easily present a PowerPoint, or any application on your computer while talking.

 

https://zoom.us/about

 

You can choose to record sessions, collaborate on projects, and share or annotate on one another's screens, all with one easy-to-use platform. Zoom offers quality video, audio, and a wireless screen-sharing performance across Windows, Mac, Linux, iOS, Android, Blackberry, Zoom Rooms, and H. Many of you may already be using Zoom. If not, come and join the community!

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Jisc have issued this YouTube guide (skip the ads at the start) 

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If students don’t have IT kit or broadband, don’t worry as you can join the meeting/class from a simple phone connection:

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• Usually invitations are distributed by email invitation but the bare details (meeting ID number and numeric password) can go out on SMS

• The invited party dials a London number (+44 (0) 20 3695 0088)

• The voice prompt requests the meeting ID number followed by #

• They add a further # if they are not the meeting organiser – there’s guidance from the voice prompts

• They then join the meeting on the phone

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enjoy!

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If you have difficulties with this, please click on the link below to contact the Digital Strategy group.

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General - WCS Digital Strategy Group