 Hi, this is Russell Stanoff from teachertrainingvideos.com I've got videos on my YouTube channel about Zoom that have been played 450,000 times and there's a few that have been played more than a hundred thousand times and I get loads and loads of questions about the settings. So what I've decided to do is to show you the 10 most important things to know about the settings, the ones that will answer most of your questions and if you work through these settings, it will probably really help you when you're doing your Zoom sessions to know exactly what you've set up and why it works this way. So I'm going to go through the settings and explain why each one's important. 10 of the most important really hope you like the video and if you do please like it, please share it and of course please comment on it. Let's get going. So don't forget your settings are here. When you log into your account click down on settings you can use these buttons here to jump down. If you click here it will take you down and that will take you even further and this will take you to the basic settings. I'm going to start from the beginning. Okay, the most important thing and number one that I'm going to focus on straight away is the waiting room. Make sure you've got your waiting room on. That means that the students will be in the waiting room but did you realize that you can customize your waiting room and if you click here you can add up your own logo and you can also leave a little message so that people know, okay, yes, I'm in the right place. So really good first tip set a waiting room up. That means you've got more control about who comes into your room. Secondly, put up a little logo that will help them to understand that they are in the right place and thirdly, leave a little message for them as well. Second important setting, make sure that the host video is on definitely when the video session starts when the Zoom session starts but you might want not to have the students or participants videos come on instantly. There could be lots of reasons for that particularly if you've got a really big group of students and you don't want everyone to connect with their videos because it can slow down the delivery of the session. So here you can set that so that they have to actually turn their videos on and you may be encouraging them not to do that if you don't want them to use the videos at the beginning of the Zoom session. Now, you also have the same setting mute or pass its participants when they join a meeting. So you can click on that if you want to mute them as well as turn their videos off. Again, it does depend on what you're planning on doing. Generally, I like to have the audio on so immediately people can communicate with you and you can welcome them. But as I've said, if I've got particularly a big group, I don't have the videos on. This is a really important setting. Make sure that you've got the chat on so that you can then send message to students. I turn private chat off so students can't communicate with each other. If they're going to communicate has to be to the whole class or to me. And a really useful setting is auto saving chats. Turn that on. That can be really useful because it means that when you finish the lesson, all your chats are saved. Now, let me quickly show you where your chats will be saved on your computer. So if you're working on a PC, everything to do with Zoom will be saved in your documents under Zoom. And if you see here, you can see loads and loads of presentations. And if I come down and click on any of them, as soon as I come into them, you'll see that it will include the chat because I've automatically got the chat saved. This is the same place that all your recordings will also be saved. So it's really useful to know that the chat window, the interactive whiteboards, if you work with them and the actual recordings of the Zoom sessions are all saved in that part in documents, Zoom, and it's all there. And it's obviously dated for easy access. I just want to quickly point out to you if you like this video and you want more videos about Zoom, then come over to teachertrainingvideos.com. There's a great section on Zoom with loads and loads of videos. And if you want to keep up with my work, the best thing to do is to sign up to the newsletter. You get updated with all the blog posts I write or the new videos I make, the online courses and the webinars. Right, let's get back to the training. This can be a useful button. Make sure you've got file transfer on so that means that you can share files with your students and you can share them in the chat window. But one thing you may want to do is to make sure that you kind of set a maximum file size because you may want to do that, particularly if you're allowing participants to also share files. So you can click here and set a maximum size that can be really useful if you're worried about students sending huge, great files across or via the chat window. So keep in mind that you can set that. I have to say that most of the time I don't set that. However, I'm not working with really young students. It's useful to know it's there. It's very likely that you're going to have co-hosts, particularly if you're doing a big session and it's a good idea then to turn that on. And remember that co-hosts will have the same controls as a host so they can create breakout rooms, etc. Meeting polls and many people ask me, Russell, I haven't got polls on the screen. That's because you haven't got it set in your settings. Turn that on. Remember any setting that you create from then on every single time you create a Zoom, it will follow all your settings. Turn that on and that will allow you on the fly if you want to create very quick polls that you can then use with your students when you're doing your session. Now, I'm not going to focus on this button because it only functions with very latest versions of Zoom. It's very interesting. It's the ability to be able to show your Zoom window when you're working in screen sharing. Now, this is ideal for anyone who's doing training around Zoom. And I will do a video about this in the future. So just keep that in mind, but I'm not including it in today's session. This control here, well, you can set it here that you can only only the host can share their screen. But obviously when you're in the presentation, you can change that by clicking on advanced settings, particularly if you want someone else to screen share. But I always start with this in the off position. So when it comes to screen sharing, set it so that only the host can screen share, but you can change that during the session if you want someone else to do screen sharing. This setting is so important that I've done a separate video about it and it's on the screen now and you can click on it and watch that. Really useful to understand the difference between screen sharing and application or screen sharing your desktop. And that's what that video covers. A lot of people email me to say, Russell, I can't stop my students annotating on the screen. Well, yes, you can because you can click on this button here and only the user who is sharing can annotate. And that means that no one else, apart from the person who's screen sharing, can annotate. Now, obviously, there are some people that like to have annotations on for everybody, particularly if you're working with young learners. I myself have experienced it and don't find it that useful. I tend to prefer to only allow myself to be the person that can annotate. This is a really important button that teachers often overlook. Make sure you've got that set to on. You want to be able to use your interactive whiteboards when students are working in groups, you want them to be able to save what they've created. In fact, what you can do here is allow the students to be able to save their interactive whiteboards, particularly when they're working in breakout rooms. And also here, make sure that you auto save your interactive whiteboards notes, etc. And again, that will be in exactly the same place as the chat, as the recordings, etc. Breakout rooms obviously vital. You want to be able to use breakout rooms and it's a really nice idea as well. If you like to organize your breakout rooms before the session, but you need some information to be able to do this, you can choose this option and it will allow you therefore to upload a text file so that you can organize your students into breakout rooms. But the trouble is you need specific information about your students to make that possible. So generally, I don't use that. But obviously, you want to have your breakout rooms on and many times people have said to me, Russell, I don't have a breakout rooms button. A few quick ones here that are really worth knowing meeting reactions. You want that on so that students can use emojis to react and respond. I don't allow people that I've removed to join the presentation again. And they'll go back into the waiting room if they try to come in anyway. And I do allow students to obviously rename themselves. It's often a big problem when people log in using a different someone else's device. And so they should be able to roll over their names in the participant list and change their names. If you like the idea of using the virtual backgrounds, I have a curtain so it doesn't really affect me, but you can turn that on here. That can be a useful setting as well. And one that many people ask me about. And you've also got the option here to manage your backgrounds. And one other one that's quite important, and I'm going to make this the last one. Most of the time when I do a recording, I save it on my computer and then I upload it to YouTube and share the link. There is a limited amount of space on the cloud that you get with a Zoom account. And if you want to, you could, of course, upload your videos onto the cloud. It kind of saves you time in a way because what you can do is click on this option here and then once the video is loaded onto the cloud, then you can share the link with the students and immediately they can access the video, whereas what I tend to do a lot is actually save the video on my computer. Then I have to upload it onto YouTube. Then I have to share the link. So it does make the process a little bit quicker. Obviously, the difference is you are saving the video on the Zoom cloud rather than saving your video on YouTube. OK, you really hope you like that video. Please come over to teachertrainingvideos.com if you want more videos. We've got a special section on Zoom with loads of different videos. Some of them have been very popular. If you want to follow my work, sign up to the newsletter. That way you'll be updated with all the new videos that come out. The online courses I've run, the webinars I run, the blog posts I write. You can also subscribe to my YouTube channel, but don't forget to click on the bell so that you get updated when new videos come out. And if you are thinking of inviting me to do some training with your organisation, doing lots of work around Camtasia, Zoom, Moodle, etc. Then please contact me and you can do that from the website. And thank you very much.