How not to do games in a Zoom call

Zoom is used for a lot of different things. It is not just for formal school classes or formal business meetings. It can also be used to teach your friends (or paid tutoring students), how to use all of the amazing features of a casino Jackpot. But regardless of if you are doing formal schooling, business meetings, or information tutoring sessions, you may want to incorporate some games into your Zoom session to either break the ice or else bring some “fun” to the session.

But when done wrong, what sounds liked like “fun” in your head, can quickly turn into a complete disaster in your Zoom meeting.

Personal Example of a Zoom Tutoring Session that went wrong … what not to do in a Zoom session

Over the past couple of weeks, I have been working on trying to find a tutor for a group tutoring session. For part of it, I was going to be the host, and for part of it, the group of us was going to hire a professional tutor to help with conversational skills for foreign language learning.

First lesson … a half an hour for a group lesson is not enough time. When dealing with a group of 4 people, if you want enough time for everybody to speak, you need an hour.

The second lesson was a problem with the tutor. We chose a tutor who advertised “I do lots of games during the lesson.” Sounds great, regardless of if you are an adult or a child, because who doesn’t like playing games. Let’s face it. If adults did not like games, websites like casino Jackpot would not be as successful as they are.

The problem was that the teacher decided to do a memory game. But her idea of the game was that she played the game and the students watched her play the game. The tutor refused to give control of the mouse over to the students. She also refused to even release the annotate features, so at least the student could circle the item that needed to be clicked. Zoom has a feature that allows the circle to disappear after 30 seconds, so there is enough time for everybody to see the selection, but the circle does not remain on the screen.

Did the teacher not give control because of some educational philosophy? Nope, she just did not know how to use Zoom.

So the moral of the story is that if you are going to Host a meeting, take a couple of hours and learn how to use Zoom properly. For that, I would recommend the series How to use Zoom: Easy Zoom Tips by Chadley Creative Counseling

It is definitely worth the time, but I will admit that I did increase the speed to 1.5x for a majority of the video times. I also did not do fullscreen, so you can actually see the stuff at the bottom (which is very important when learning Zoom).

Tips before you get started

When you are trying to learn how to use Zoom as a host, you are going to need two stations. One will be the teacher’s station, and one will be the student’s station. Your computer can be the teacher’s station, and a phone or tablet, can be the student’s station. And borrow your child’s (or neighbor’s child’s) stuffed animal to represent the other student. All the experienced Zoom teachers use stuffed animals to represent students, so “don’t be bashful” (as my Grandma would say).

I am stating some major points, but definitely take the time to actually watch the videos. I will comment about a couple of the videos, the rest of the videos can speak for themselves.

Video 2: How to screen share zoom

This is the most important video to watch. You have to practice what you are seeing in the video. Practice as the host. Practice as the participant on a Windows computer, tablet, and phone. Unless the Zoom call is just talking (weekly phone call to the grandparents), if you are the host, you will want to host using a computer, so you can do screen shares.

What is shared? You can share the whole screen (not recommended), a window, or a browser tab.

Once the screen is shared, you can then then allow or not allow the participants to have control.

First, the types of views when shared is active. In the upper left hand corner of the shared window, you will see a button labeled “view”. If you do not see it, move your mouse and you will see it.

Standard view – the participant videos is on the top.
Side by side speaker – just the speaker video is shown.
Side by side gallery – everybody’s videos are shown.
Full screen – does not affect gallery, but does provide a full screen.

There is also view options:

Zoom (make the shared screen bigger or small).
Request remote control (sends a message to the host to allow you to have remote control, aka mouse icon button on Host’s computer).
Annotate (only available if the host activates this option).

Of all of the videos, this is the most important one if you want to incorporate games into your Zoom meetings (where you want the meeting to be interactive).

Video 3: Zoom audio not working

The lesson I learned is that if you click on the up arrow on the “Mute” button, you get a menu. Included in this menu is a list of all of the available audio options. Very frustrating to be in a Zoom meeting to find out somebody plugged in headphones and then placed them behind the computer when they were done.

With this menu, you can see which audio option is active and what your options are. Easy to see that the speakers accidentally got unplugged. This is also the menu that displays which speakers are available.

Video 8: How video studio

This is a really important video, because it talks about simple tips to make your zoom video betters — paying attention to camera angles and your background, as well as simple stuff, like using a screen to hide clutter.

Video 10: 3 simple steps to look better on Zoom

Simple stuff which sets the amateurs apart from the professionals. Definitely worth watching.

Video 13: Best microphone for zoom and computer

Even if you are not in the market for a new microphone, it is interesting to see the difference in audio quality of different options. Hint: laptop built in microphone is the worst.

Video 18: Using Zoom breakout rooms

Another must-watch video. Very useful even if your meeting is just 4 – 8 people.

Rest of the videos

From this menu, you can easily change to another microphone or speaker option.

Video 1: How to fix zoom connection issues: Zoom keeps freezing – Zoom internet connection unstable
Video 3: Zoom closed caption – auto-generate for English, Spanish, French, etc. or create your own.
Video 5: Sharing your pronouns – set in profile
Video 6: Show speakers and hide participants – useful is you have a large meeting and want to highlight a few speakers.
Video 7 : How to host a Zoom meeting for the first time.
Video 9: How to change Zoom background – advanced settings
Video 11: Recording a zoom meeting
Video 12: Zoom filters
Video 14: Setting up a webcam for the first time
Video 15: Zoom on your phone (I skipped this one)
Video 16: How to schedule a meeting
Video 17: How to use Zoom safely (standard safety features are usually the default options)
Video 19: Joining a zoom call for the first time
Video 21: How to look good on Zoom (different host, but definitely worth watching) by Gia Goodrich