Time to Go Zoom: An Essential Guide for Zoom Meetings and JAWS for Windows.

You've read about it in the news, you may have seen it on TV and it is possible you have used it. Zoom is one of the world's most popular communications software packages. Whether it is hosting meetings, lessons, podcasts or making simple calls to friends and family, Zoom has all you could ever need.

On a personal level, you might want to contact family members living far away. Professionally speaking on the other hand, meetings are the heartbeat of businesses and organisations. Information is shared, ideas are generated, decisions are made, and work is coordinated. But running an effective online meeting is different from doing so in-person and that’s why many are run ineffectively. A correctly run virtual session can be just as successful as an “in person meeting,” but many meeting leaders lack the full knowledge necessary.

Zoom can help with all your meeting needs. Yet, with a wide variety of functions there comes a complex app which many have difficulty in using or understanding how a specific feature works.

In our training course, "Time to Go Zoom", we'll show you how to work with many of Zoom's functions.

Why Produce a Training Course When Other Resources Are Already Available?

The simple answer to this one is that we've been repeatedly asked for it. There are plenty of free and excellent resources available, many of which we've been promoting for a long time. However, there are a number of areas in which people have requested more detail. Whether you are a beginner to the Zoom platform whose requirements are quite modest, through to someone who hosts events for professional organisations, we're very confident you will gain a lot from this training course.

Who Is the Course For? A Three Step Guide.

1. First-time users to Zoom who want a quick set-up guide;
2. Anyone who wants a handy guide to quickly use Zoom's core features;
3. Anyone who wants to save time without searching through confusing FAQ's

This course is presented in simple and clear terms, with a step-by-step approach that will help you to master the Zoom program within the shortest period of time.

Subjects Discussed in the Training Course.

The course is divided into five audio lessons, with a running time of close to six hours. Topics include:

• Creating a Zoom account.
• A discussion of Zoom plans.
• Choosing a suitable microphone.
• An overview of Settings in the desktop client.
• Learning the Zoom shortcut keys.
• An overview of settings on the Zoom website.
• The do's and don't's when participating in meetings.
• An overview of the desktop client prior to joining a meeting.
• Joining a meeting from a provided link or through the Meeting ID.
• Muting and unmuting your audio.
• Leaving a meeting.
• Starting an Instant Meeting.
• Managing screen-reader alerts. Decide what is important to you.
• Scheduling a meeting using the desktop client.
• Scheduling a meeting using the Microsoft Outlook Zoom Addin.
• Copying Meting Information details.
• Copying the meeting URL.
• An overview of the Zoom primary window and the meeting window.
• Examining important Zoom controls a word or character at a time.
• What is "Original Sound" and how does it work?
• The Participants List. This is a lengthy section with particular emphasis on muting and unmuting individual users, identifying hands which are raised to denote that a user wishes to speak, assigning a user to perform closed captioning, and banning users from a meeting. Particular emphasis will be placed on how blind people can independently carry out these actions while presenting the meeting as professionalism is always paramount.
• Muting and unmuting all users.
• Determining the name of the person speaking.
• Waiting Room access. Admitting all participants, admitting a user into the meeting individually, sending a user back to the waiting room.
• Recording a meeting using Zoom's own recording facility, both locally and in the cloud.
• Making higher quality recordings of meetings when on a budget and not using an audio mixer.
• Using Zoom with Braille.
• Sharing your screen and applications. This includes sharing the audio sound of your computer or screen-reader so it can be enjoyed by others. This section goes onto explain how to temporarily change user privileges regarding screen sharing.
• Text Chat Messages. Sending and receiving messages, reviewing messages received, saving chat messages.
• Ending a meeting.
• Starting and stopping video.
• Zoom Polling./li>
• An overview of Zoom Phone. How it works, sending and receiving calls, placing calls on hold, recording voicemail, and more.

You will also get to hear some demonstrations of Original Sound versus Zoom's own noise reduction capability, and you will get to experience what it is like to host a meeting with many participants.

A bonus lesson is included contributed by one of our course participants on the subject of breakout rooms.

Finally, the training course resources page points you in the direction of obtaining useful applications for your computer, together with hardware such as audio sound mixers and microphones.

Next Steps.

While the range of topics above may seem quite daunting, we are only tapping into the functionality offered by this amazing meetings client.

Conclusion.

With the current pandemic causing chaos around the world, Zoom has become a very vital tool for small, medium and large teams who want to stay connected and continue their daily workflows with minimal obstruction, as well as being able to host family gatherings at a distance or other social get-togethers. While we hope people will be relieved from social distancing at some point, the future looks bright for Zoom.

If you are looking to use Zoom professionally or personally, you need to know how to use it properly. Come along and find out how it is done! Z is for Zoom. All your friends in one room!