Zoom has helped thousands of schools and teachers around the world to quickly move to remote virtual learning. This tool provides everyone with a consistent high-performance environment that matches the characteristics of traditional classrooms.
Zoom solutions include many different security features to manage online audiences, prevent breaches, and help educators perform their job effectively remotely. In this article, we have collected guidelines for securing virtual classrooms with Zoom.
Safety options when scheduling a meeting
What’s important with Zoom solutions is that you still have access to these and other security features when scheduling classes and before you have to change any settings in front of the students. Here are some of the more relevant examples.
Set Registration: This feature displays the email addresses of all users in the audience and can help you evaluate the users present.
Use a random conference ID: It is recommended that you generate a random conference ID for your session to avoid duplicate distribution. This is the best alternative to a Personal Conference ID and is not recommended because it essentially provides a continuous conference.
Password Protect Audience: Create a password and send it to students from your school email address so that only those who need it can enter the virtual classroom.
Allow only authorized users to sign in: When this check box is checked, only members from your school who have signed in to their Zoom accounts will be able to enter this classroom.
Disable entry before host: Students will not be able to enter the classroom before the teacher; they will receive a message: ‘Wait for the host to join the conference.’
Blocking virtual classrooms
Did you know that you can lock a Zoom session once it has started to prevent other users from logging into it? It’s like locking the door to an auditorium after a bell rings. Give students a few minutes to enter the classroom, then click Participants at the bottom of the Zoom window. In the ‘Participants’ pop-up window, click the button with the text ‘Lock Conference’.
Screen sharing control
To give instructors more control over the content available to students and to prevent the sharing of inappropriate content, Zoom recently updated the default screen sharing settings for education users. The screen sharing option is now Host-Only, so teachers are the only users who can share the default content.
However, if students need to share their work with a group, you can enable screen sharing using the organizer’s controls. Click the arrow next to Screen Sharing, and then select Advanced Sharing Options. In the Who Can Demonstrate? select the ‘Host-only’ option and close the window. You can also change the default demo setting to All Participants in the Zoom settings.
Turning on the waiting room
The lounge is one of the best ways to protect Zoom’s virtual audiences from users who shouldn’t be in it.
When enabled, you have two options for selecting users to enter the waiting room before entering the classroom.
- The All Members option will send all users to a virtual lobby where you can approve each user individually or all at once.
- The Guest Members Only option allows famous students to enter the classroom bypassing the lobby and sends all users who are not logged in or from your school to the virtual lobby.
The virtual lobby can be enabled for all audiences (in settings) or individual audiences at the planning level.