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Zoom
Zoom is a video conferencing tool that allows for communication in real-time. It has breakout rooms which can split up the Zoom meeting into separate, smaller, concurrent rooms - randomly or selectively. If you are a room Host, you can split the students into breakout room groups and you can switch between rooms at any time. This can mimic face-to-face tutorial sessions where students are split in smaller groups for discussion.
Please note that Zoom consumes high bandwidth and requires that students have reliable internet connections and sufficient data, as well as the capacity to be present at the same time to join a virtual classroom - which may not be ideal for all students. It may be useful for small groups, if all the students have been canvassed about access. Please make sure that no student is left behind - if someone cannot connect to Zoom, please consider other options such as Forums, Chat Rooms or the Q&A Tool, which are all integrated in Vula. Also note that Zoom only allows 40-minute sessions for free accounts, so please try to plan the tutorials so that you don’t exceed the time limit.
The following documents will help you about data usage and synchronous teaching for the second semester:
How-to Guide:
- CILT Guide: Zoom instructions for Vula
Example:
- Please refer to the How-to Guide given in the above section.
Group Settings:
- Zoom has breakout rooms where the host can split up the students into smaller groups. This can be done randomly or selectively. Your course convener might break a big room into smaller breakout rooms so you and your students can discuss a topic in a relatively smaller group before reporting back to the whole class.
Key Points:
- Zoom allows you to have discussion-based tutorials in real-time. It has breakout rooms where you can split up the students in smaller groups.
- Data is likely to be a serious barrier for some students.
- Can be accessed via a mobile, tablet, laptop or desktop PC through a link.
- No need to install the application. Meetings can be recorded.
- Screen share is possible, and there is whiteboard functionality.