These fabulous tips come from Nancy Faerber after her experience hosting the weekly Lenten group.
Looking for a quick downloadable Cheat Sheet? Nancy has created one here (for Desktops and Laptops).
- Resend an invitation to the meeting maybe an hour or so before it starts. People’s inboxes fill up and can be hard to find an invitation that was originally sent days ago.
- As we’re all getting used to Zoom, let your participants know you’ll be starting the meeting 10-15 minutes early if anyone wants to log in early to practice using the Zoom controls.
- As a Host, your controls are at the top of the screen — hover over the green bar. For your Participants, their controls will be at the bottom of the screen (where they can mute/unmute their mics, start a chat, etc.)
- As the Host, your name will display as “St. Clare’s” since you are using the church account.
- There appears to be slight variations in how Zoom works on different browsers and devices. By letting participants talk freely and welcome each other at the beginning of a session, people pretty quickly help each other in finding all the controls.
- When sharing my screen, I find it easiest to share my Desktop (the first image shown in the list) rather than picking a specific application or browser tab. You can then easily switch between your open windows by ALT+Tab (or the Mac equivalent) and whatever is on your main desktop is what everyone will see. See https://support.zoom.us/hc/en-us/articles/201362153-Sharing-your-screen
- As a Host, you can have Zoom windows open (like the list of participants or the chat window) and these will not appear when you share your screen, which is good. However, you may find it hard to watch the chat window and go through your presentation, so ask someone to monitor the chat for you so you don’t miss when someone is trying to let you know they can’t hear or have to leave early, etc.
- If you want to play a video clip, make sure when you share your screen that you check the “Share Computer Sound” box in the lower left corner at the time you are selecting your desktop to share. See https://support.zoom.us/hc/en-us/articles/201362643-Sharing-Computer-Sound-During-Screen-Sharing
- As a Host, if you have a headset with microphone, that provides the best audio for your audience. Most participants will just rely on their computer or tablet’s microphone, so sometimes it’ll be hard to hear what they say.
- Relax and have fun! Be prepared to see family members and pets wander by when people have their cameras on!