Category: Educational Technology

The latest version of the Zoom Desktop software carries several updates that impact the classroom. The update includes a new breakout room option, the ability to save a Gallery View for use later as well as additional support for Emoji in chat.

We are so proud to present you with the new LEC Faculty Studio! This new space allows faculty the opportunity to create and edit a variety of engaging content types for their courses. Here, you can film video and record audio for course content including welcome videos, course tours, course orientations, and much more. Our new 66” lightboard will allow you to craft engaging content and illustrate concepts while maintaining a connection with your audience.

The recent Zoom Update to version 5.8.6 brought one particularly helpful feature for the classroom. If you have ever co-presented with someone, or if your students do so, one person is typically responsible for controlling the slide deck. Now with the latest update, presenters can authorize anyone on the meeting to control the slide deck.

Recent updates to the Zoom Application version 5.8.4 bring one particularly helpful feature for the online classroom, Advanced Polling. Advanced Polling has been automatically enabled for our accounts.  With Advanced Polling there is the introduction of several new question types as well as a Quiz Mode. 

The latest Zoom Update to version 5.8.0 offers a couple of features that can be handy for the classroom. The first is “poll access for alternative hosts” which allows an alternative host to add or edit polls. When multiple instructors are in a canvas course, typically a primary instructor is the host, and all other instructors are automatically listed as alternative hosts to meetings created in Canvas. This feature provides all instructors in the canvas course the ability to add and edit polls for meetings. This is helpful for faculty who want to create polls to use but were listed as alternative hosts.

Inside of a recent Zoom Update to the desktop software (5.7.5), there is a great feature for those instructors who are teaching online courses. When delivering instruction, especially via Zoom it can be challenging for faculty to keep students focused on the instruction. The new feature, called Focus Mode, once enabled allows the instructor to prevent student’s video streams from distracting each other by displaying only student’s names instead of their video stream. The instructor will still see the students’ video and students will see the instructor in addition to their own video stream. With two clicks the instructor can disable Focus Mode to allow for a class discussion and can easily be shifted back when appropriate.  

Some of our recent LEC Newsletter articles shared the importance of captioning video content for advancing the accessibility of your course content. With the goal of improving course content accessibility in mind, the Office of Innovation and Information Technology recently upgraded our captioning service available within SharkMedia. The new service replaces Cielo 24 with Kaltura Captions Reach V2.

The Latest Update from Zoom 5.7.0 brought several great features that benefit the digital classroom. Check out a brief description of some of these new features.

Connect with your Class a little differently through the newly available Immersive View. With the Zoom Software update that arrived on April 26th (version 5.6.4), a new way of looking at your class became available. Immersive View is a fun new way to get out of Gallery Mode and feel a little closer together in the same space while on Zoom. Although it has some limitations, it does create a more welcome feeling to hosting discussions in a variety of scenes like a classroom, boardroom, or lecture hall.

In collaboration with the Office of Innovation and Information Technology, we are excited to announce that Respondus will include Instructor Live Proctoring capabilities. We have had the ability to use Respondus Lockdown Browser to deter cheating, and Respondus Monitor to proctor exams, but have you wished you could proctor your exams in real-time, in a remote setting? Wait no more!