 In this video, I'm going to show the December 2020 updates to the Zoom breakout rooms and how they can be effectively used in a Toastmaster speech contest or training session. I will cover the two key features that were introduced in December. First, the co-host can now control the breakout room just like the host. The second is the ability to bring participants to the main session and I will also cover two other features that were introduced earlier. One is the ability for participants to choose their own breakout room and second, the ability for the host to automatically move participants to a desired breakout room. Let's get started. If you are new to breakout rooms, I highly recommend you check out my other video, link in the description where I explain the basics of breakout rooms. That video was created in June 2020 and Zoom has made significant updates to the breakout rooms. And in this video, I'm going to focus on this new features. This is a typical Zoom meeting. I'm designated as a co-host. If I scroll to the bottom of the Zoom controls, I can see that I can now access breakout rooms. This was not possible before only the host could manage breakout rooms. But now any co-host can click on the breakout room. They can create new breakout rooms, assign participants to breakout rooms, all the activities which only the host could do before. This will be very helpful in large events where multiple people need to share responsibility. So one person now can be designated only to handle the breakout rooms while the host is free to do other tasks. The key update to the breakout rooms is the ability for the host or co-host to move the participants from the breakout room to the main session. Let's say I want to create a breakout room and I will assign the participants manually and I'll click on the create button. I can give a name to my breakout room. Let me rename it as isolation room. I will assign two participants to this room. If I open the breakout room by clicking on open all rooms, I can see both the participants are now in the breakout room called isolation room and the main session that's just me. When participants are in the breakout room, they can click on the leave button and they will get two options, either to leave the meeting or to return to the main session. Sometimes participants get confused and instead of returning to the main session, they end up leaving the meeting and this can be a problem, especially in a toss master speech contest. With the new update, the host can simply click on the name of the participant to be brought to the main session and click move to select main session. This will give an alert to the participant that the moderator is inviting him into the main session and all he or she has to do is click on the join button and the participant is in the main session. For table topics and evaluation contests, this will be extremely helpful. Once a participant has finished his or her speech, all the host has to do is select the next participant who's in the isolation room and initiate the move to main session. This will avoid any confusion both from the part of the participants as well as the organizers. The next update is the ability for participants to choose which breakout room they wish to join. This update was actually introduced way back in September. This feature can be very useful if you're hosting training sessions in different breakout rooms and you want the participants to decide which training session they wish to attend. Previously, the host had to do this activity and it could be very difficult, especially if there are a large number of attendees. When you want to create breakout rooms where participants choose where they wish to go, click on the breakout rooms and make sure you choose the third option. Let participants choose room. Click on the create button and create your breakout rooms. Let's create three breakout rooms and let's give them names. Let's call the first room judges training. Add a new room and let's say this is for the contestants. Add one more room and let's say this is a training for role players. Now all you have to do is when it is time to start the training, click open all rooms. Once the breakout rooms are opened, participants will get an icon on their screen indicating that breakout rooms are now available. When they click on that icon, they get a choice to choose the breakout rooms and once they choose the breakout room that they wish to join, click the join button and you will see that the participant has now moved to the breakout room of his or her choice. In this scenario, participants are free to hop from one breakout room to the other breakout room without any intervention from the host. This is an excellent option when you want to give your participants a choice of where they should go for their training. The last part I would like to cover is the ability for the host to automatically move participants to the breakout rooms. This is not a new feature, but it is buried inside the options and you can tend to overlook it. When you're creating a breakout rooms, click options and if you want your participants to be automatically moved into the breakout room whenever you open the breakout rooms, choose this option. This ensures that when you open the breakout rooms, all the participants who are assigned to that breakout room will be automatically moved into their respective breakout rooms. Those are some of the updates to breakout rooms. If you encounter any problems in the features that I have described, make sure that everyone involved, the host, the co-host and the participants have upgraded their Zoom client to the latest version. I hope you found this video useful and I wish you all the best in your next online contest or training.