Most of our recent interactions with colleagues and students have been through our computer screen. The news and our social media feeds are full of warnings about “Zoom-bombing”, referring to Zoom meetings. Unwanted guests can crash any event if we don’t follow these guidelines.
(updated February 2021)
Geneseo Zoom now has live captioning and live transcription capabilities. These can be beneficial for many different learners and meeting attendees, including those who:
The way you interact with Live Transcripts depends on whether you're the host or the attendee.
This step only needs to be done once. |
Step 2: Enable Captioning as the Host of a Zoom Meeting
This needs to be done with each new meeting you host. Captioning is not available in breakout rooms. |
Please note, auto-generated transcripts are not a replacement for an accommodation. If a student or meeting attendee with a disability requires support beyond automatic transcription, the Office of Accessibility (access@geneseo.edu) will coordinate the appropriate services for them.
All publicized events must include the phrase: “If you require accommodations for equal access to this event, please contact the Office of Accessibility Services via email at access@geneseo.edu, or call 585-245-5112 one week prior to this event.”
A Custom Personal Link provides a clean and consistent Zoom meeting URL for all your meetings and classes. For example, you can create a personal link that is your first initial and last name. This is great for both meeting hosts and professors as it’s easy for employees and students to remember.
Turning off HD Video will improve the user experience for everyone attending, especially if they have bandwidth limitations, restricted data usage on mobile, or unreliable internet access.
From within the Zoom Client:
By selecting the “Always Show Meeting Controls” checkbox, the controls at the bottom of the zoom screen will remain up. This improves the user experience for many participants as they don’t have to worry about the bar appearing and disappearing upon hover (especially if they are new to Zoom and don’t know how to make the bar at the bottom show up after it’s disappeared).
From within the Zoom Client:
In your meeting settings, select the “Mute participants upon entry” checkbox (located under Meeting Options when scheduling a session). Participants will have to unmute their mics to participate. This feature will ensure fewer disruptions at the start of a meeting or class.
Send out the Zoom Keyboard Shortcuts ahead of time. These instructions are valuable for anyone using keyboard only navigation or assistive technology. In addition, it could be helpful to anyone who may have had their mouse stop working unexpectedly.
Describing visual content that is displayed will help anyone with a vision or cognitive disability, as well as someone that may have needed to call in due to a local internet outage.
There are a couple ways people can ask questions. First, participants can use non-verbal feedback, such as raising their hand and unmuting when called upon. In addition, they can post a question in the chat feature. The recommendation is to use both features, but to always repeat questions that are provided through chat. By repeating the questions, you will help anyone that can’t access the chat during the session (people using assistive technology will have too much screen reader interference if they enable chat) and you will improve the captioning quality of any recorded sessions.
It’s okay to use the Chat feature. However, keep in mind that anyone using assistive technology may not be able to copy or activate the links. It’s recommended that you send any resource links you’ll be sharing either prior to or after the session. You can also speak out the URL when posting it in Chat. If your resource link is long, consider using a URL shortener, such as bit.ly or Tiny URL, to help with communicating the link verbally and so that the link is cleaner for anyone copying it from the chat box.
Please reach out to the CIT Help Desk to identify which polling product is the most accessible to all your participants. Currently, the Zoom polling tool has significant barriers for both presenters and participants with disabilities.
Similar to using a white board in the classroom, you should always describe what you are writing on the board for anyone with a disability or anyone that is using their phone due to internet connection issues in your virtual room.
There are a few reasons to consider recording your zoom sessions locally to your computer for distribution after a meeting or class:
Note: The "record to the Cloud" feature is currently disabled for Geneseo Zoom. You need to record to your local device.
The Zoom LTI in Canvas works best for simple, repeating meetings of one class. If you would like to share office hours among all classes or use advanced features like pre-arranged breakout rooms or polls, we recommend you use the main web interface for Zoom and share the link(s) with your classes.
Click Navigation.
Drag Zoom from the hidden items to the place where you would like it to appear in the Navigation.
Click Save.
Zoom Meetings can be scheduled from within a Canvas Course. Users access the Zoom for Canvas tool from the navigation area for the course. The landing page shows information on upcoming meetings and previous meetings. Any user with the correct permissions will see the Schedule a New Meeting button.
Click the Schedule a New Meeting button to display the Schedule a Meeting page. Fill out the fields in the meeting settings:
After the meeting is scheduled, click the Start button to launch a scheduled meeting.
Once you sign in with your Geneseo.edu account you will have to join our domain and Zoom will refund the credit card the remaining balance of your zoom subscription. You may subscribe to Zoom with a non-Geneseo email address to purchase a pro plan. You can then change the email associated with your account to a personal email address. This will let you keep all your scheduled meetings. See this zoom article for more information.
Google Hangouts Meet is great for department meetings and other multi-person meetings. You can easily add a Google Hangouts Meet to any meeting in google calendar with a few clicks. Google Hangouts supports participants up to 250, no meeting length limits, and provides dial-in numbers for all attendees.
Change your virtual background: Show your Geneseo pride with one of these backgrounds.
You can also get some additional backgrounds here.
Virtual backgrounds may not be possible on all models of computers. Some older, or less powerful, devices may require a green screen in order to use a virtual background. |
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