There have been many Zoom updates over the past few months and we wanted to address them in terms of how they can be used in your class(es)!

• Being accountable! Faculty that set up Zoom polls for their class can now get student data as long as the student is logged in with their Stony Brook University account. After the class is over, log into Zoom and click on Reports > Meeting > radio button: Poll Report. A list of users, questions, and the response given can be downloaded. Review these formative assessments to see if there are students you should reach out to! 
• What a great reaction! Participants have access to a large range of emojis under Reactions in the session. Utilize these emojis in icebreaker activities or as additional options when asking opinions or for reactions in class from your students. Emojis can be limited in your Zoom settings as well. 
• Get immersed in the experience! Once you enable “immersive view” in settings, you and your participants can see each other embedded in various images. Have your students see each other in a classroom setting, or use the smaller immersive setups to record video with your TAs and/or other faculty. Students can also use it to record group presentations. 
• Make sessions more accessible! Zoom has an auto-transcription feature so that there is a real-time computer generated automatic transcription available for students that need it once you enable it.

SBU Update! 

You recently received an email from DoIT about the retention of Zoom recordings:

Starting June 1st, 2021, Zoom cloud recordings older than 180 days will be automatically deleted and sent to a trash folder. This action will be on a rolling basis and recordings will be removed after they pass the 180 day mark. If you wish to keep your recordings, instructions are provided below.  Please note that Zoom recordings saved locally to your computer are not affected by this policy.

You can download and save your recordings and/or move your Zoom recordings directly into your Echo account. More information can be found on the Zoom Cloud Recording Retention page. 

As you are going through your recordings, think about what you want to keep! Do you want to reuse any content for future classes? According to Richard Mayer’s Cognitive Theory of Multimedia Learning, working memory has a limited capacity (Brame, 2015). Some questions to ask now that the videos are recorded: 

• Segmenting: can you break the videos into manageable parts and keep videos short?
• Signaling: Did you highlight important/key points?
• Weeding: Do you have extraneous/irrelevant information or dated information in the video? 
• How is the video quality? 
• How is the sound quality?

Want to chat further? Contact us to set up a consultation! 

Ігор Пєтков, CC0, via Wikimedia Commons

References: 

Brame, C.J. (2015). Effective educational videos. Retrieved April 2, 2021 from http://cft.vanderbilt.edu/guides-sub-pages/effective-educational-videos/