Zoom: For business, for the classroom
Updated February 07, 2017
Zoom: For business, for the classroom
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Software Version
Other
Overall Satisfaction with Zoom
Zoom is the official web conferencing solution for the University of San Francisco where faculty, staff and students have access to a Pro Zoom account to host meetings. On the business side, it is used for department meetings all or some members are off site and need to remote in to attend. Faculty are using Zoom in the classroom for mixed face to face and online classroom. Faculty are also using the service to host online office hours, especially valuable for adjunct faculty who do not have an office to meet with students. Students are using Zoom to meet as small groups and to record presentations for class, especially graduate courses, where presentation time during class is difficult to schedule. Staff are using Zoom to provide a way for the USF community to attend events, workshops and training if they cannot attend in person.
- The video quality is fantastic, providing consistent for the participants. Very few issues with drops in connection and most times it is not Zoom at issue but the network.
- The software is very intuitive and easy to use-no browser compatibility issues with plugins-the software is straightforward and easy to setup but provides powerful tools to schedule and manage meetings.
- The recording feature provides a great way to not only archive events and meetings but to share, either as a link or as a downloaded file.
- For the online classroom, the breakout rooms are a great way to have small group discussion with the ability for the faculty to drop in on the various rooms to sample the work being done in each group.
- Better integration with Learning Management Systems like Canvas to join meetings right in the Canvas interface.
- Perhaps one feature that may not be possible is the ability to connect two webcams and have a multi-camera view For instance, one on the speaker and one on the audience).
- Zoom has enabled accessibility for meetings, to allow greater flexibility for attendance and participation for those not able to attend in person.
- With everyone on campus with a Pro account, no bottlenecks to who can schedule meetings or events.
We have two Zoom rooms for evaluation but no data in yet as of its use.
Zoom may not have as many tools as Adobe Connect, but to have a product like Zoom be simple to use with less complications of platform or browser compatibility, there was no question why we went to Zoom. Setting up a Zoom meeting is straightforward and the quality of the connection for audio, screen sharing and video has been stellar.