FAQ in using Zoom for Online Teaching

They are at B4-LP-13, D2-LP-08, D2-LP-09, TKOSC-205 and TKOSC-605, please visit OCIO’s website for detailed information on this.

Feeling connected with the students is important when we deliver teaching online. Apart from seeing students over the camera, there are many ways to interact with them and facilitate their participation in an online environment. We would like to share with you the following:

Promote interactivity with tools in Zoom

• The Raise Hand feature can help students to provide a simple indication as to whether they can hear you well.
• To help sharing, organizing and mapping ideas, try using the Whiteboard on Zoom.
• The Chatroom can accommodate text-based responses well, and it can also be used for in-meeting file sharing.
• Create space for thinking and reflection with smaller Breakout Rooms.
• Another way to gather responses from students is to create multiple-choice polling questions on Zoom.

Promote interactivity with tools on Moodle

• Take advantage of the Moodle Forums to help keep communication open between you and students, and give students opportunities to post reflections on course content or assignments.
• Short, low-stakes quizzes can also be created through Moodle Quiz. A combination of true/false, multiple-choice and short answer questions would help you see how students are progressing.

Promote interactivity with other apps

• Google Docs is also popular among students. It allows groups to work collaboratively on projects and assignments at a distance by giving every member the ability to share and edit content over the web simultaneously.

For quality online teaching, live handwriting on a shared screen during a Zoom meeting is sometimes necessary. Using an iPad as a writing/ drawing tablet on your computer, you can share your handwriting/ drawing side-by-side with other shared presentations/ documents on the same screen. Please follow the steps below, or watch this video: http://bit.ly/3ctomwr.

Before you can use an iPad as a drawing tablet, you need the following devices:
– Mac
– iPad
– Apple Pencil (i.e., a stylus pen)
– USB or USB-C cable

When you connect the iPad to your computer for the first time, you will be prompted to “Trust” the computer on your iPad. Click Trust, this allows iPad to remember the settings and automatically trust the computer in the future.

On your Mac, open Finder  .

Select the iPad device name under Locations on the left side of the window.

Click Trust. This will let your Mac to remember the iPad and automatically connect to the iPad next time.

With your iPad connected, open QuickTime Player  on your Mac.

Click New Movie Recording, then click the small arrow next to the record bottom.

Select the iPad name as camera. Now you iPad screen will be displayed on your Mac.

You are ready to share your document (e.g. PowerPoint presentation) with the iPad screen on the same Zoom Desktop.

On your Mac:

Open Zoom app, click Share Screen and select Desktop.

The following steps will open the PowerPoint window and the iPad screen side-by-side:
Open PowerPoint file, select Slide Show from the menu.

Select Set Up Slide Show and click Browsed by an individual (window).

Click OK to confirm, then click Play from Start from the menu.

On Zoom window, align the PowerPoint window and the iPad Notes side-by-side.

On your iPad:

Open Notes  , tap on the screen and use Apple Pencil to start drawing/handwriting. You can also use other apps if you wish.

On teacher’s screen:

On participant’s iPhone screen and computer:

To avoid confusion among students, we do not recommend that you use platforms other than Zoom and Microsoft Teams for online learning and teaching.

All full-time and part-time students are eligible to borrow, on a need-basis, one notebook from the Tai Po IT Help Desk Service Counter (C-LP-20) by presenting their EdUHK Cards. Due to limited resources, all loan items are provided on a first-come-first-served basis.  Please contact Tai Po IT Help Desk Service Counter (C-LP-20) or call up the hotline at 2948 6601 to check the availability. Students can also use the iMac computers in the Learning Commons.

Using an iPad or other touch-screen devices might be easier if you need to write equations and/or draw on the “whiteboard” during Zoom meetings. In view of the unusual circumstances at present, the LTTC offers a small amount of iPads for borrowing for up to three weeks. Please email lttc@eduhk.hk if you would like to borrow an iPad.

VPN is not required for students in Mainland China to access Moodle, Zoom and EdUHK Video Portal. According to OCIO, it is recommended NOT to use VPN when using the EdUHK Video Portal in Mainland China.

For users in Mainland China, when they join a Zoom class/meeting with the URL or from Moodle (e.g. https://eduhk.zoom.us/j/{meeting_id}), they will be re-directed to “https://eduhk.zoom.com.cn/j/{meeting_id}” automatically.

If users still fail to access the “eduhk.zoom.com.cn” domain, they can try to access “zoom.com.cn” and click “Join a Meeting” with the meeting ID.

When VPN service is necessary, OCIO advised that the best practice is to use GlobalProtect VPN (https://www.eduhk.hk/ocio/vpn-service).

From the experience accumulated so far, video streaming within the Zoom application (using “Share Screen”) works fine when all students are in Hong Kong and with stable internet connection. For the best video quality experience, it is recommended that you select Optimize for full-screen video clip when you select the screen you want to share.

If there are students from Mainland China, it is not advisable to use synchronous video streaming within the Zoom application. The alternative is to share a link of the video resource with the students, and ask them to watch it on a separate application (e.g., an internet browser) simultaneously.

However, when the video resource that you are going to use is accessible to EdUHK members only (e.g., a clip on EdVideo of the EdUHK Library), sharing a video link and asking a large group of students to watch it simultaneously is not recommended. It would work better if students can access that video resource asynchronously. Naturally, this would imply that the time designated for synchronous activities can be compressed.

On a different note, when you embed the video onto the relevant Moodle page, only students in your course will have viewing access to the video. This is one measure of access control.

To facilitate attendance taking, please only use your EdUHK Zoom account to conduct any online lesson. No matter which device you are using, always check if the indication “Licensed” appears beside your name and email address. To do this, please follow the instructions at this link: https://www.eduhk.hk/ocio/content/faq-how-check-which-account-i-have-logged-zoom-client. If you have previously registered for another account in Zoom, you should switch back to the EdUHK Zoom account immediately.

Some students might be having back-to-back classes, and they would easily get confused if the start time of your Zoom class clashes with their other lessons. Therefore, please try to set the start time of your Zoom class as the exact time of when your timetabled session begins. You can still begin your Zoom session earlier than the start time to allow time for students to join the meeting and test their devices.

In Zoom, scheduling a “recurring meeting” allows participants to join your scheduled meeting with multiple occurrences at specific day and time. Each occurrence uses the same meeting ID and settings.

To setup “recurring meeting” in Moodle, login to Moodle and click Turn editing on. Under the Topic, click Add an activity or resource. Select” Zoom meeting” from the list and Add. In the settings, enter the meeting information and tick “Recurring” option.

This will create a No Fixed Time (always available) meeting. You will further re-schedule it to daily, weekly and monthly basis using eduhk.zoom.us. Sign in through https://eduhk.zoom.us/ and click Meetings on the left menu, then you can find the meeting topic with the Start Time set to Recurring.

Re-schedule the meeting to occur daily, weekly, and monthly, simply select the meeting topic and click Edit this Meeting. At the “Recurrence” dropdown box, select an appropriate schedule.

Enter the date/time details of your meeting schedule, click Save to confirm the settings.

To mark the Zoom recurring meeting schedules to your Outlook, you need to have Outlook desktop client installed on your computer.

Sign in through https://eduhk.zoom.us/, select Meetings on the left menu and find the meeting topic. Click the Topic and then click Add to Outlook Calendar (.ics).

This will download a .ics file to your computer’s Download folder. The .ics file include the Zoom meeting details, when you open the file, recurring schedule will be marked on your Outlook Calendar.

Double-click to open the file and click Save & Close to add meeting schedule to Outlook Calendar.

Meeting links are marked as Calendar entries. Simply click the link to start a scheduled Zoom meeting.

In-Meeting file transfer allows you to send files to other meeting participants during the meeting through the in-meeting chat. To use In-Meeting file transfer:
1) Click on Chat during a Zoom meeting.
2) Click the File button from the lower part of the chat window to send a file.
3) Select the file when prompted
4) A file icon with file name will appear in the chat window when the file is successfully sent.

If you cannot access this feature, please do the following:
1) Sign in to the Zoom web portal (https://eduhk.zoom.us/).
2) Click Account Management > Account Settings.
3) Navigate to the File Transfer option on the Meeting tab and verify that the setting is enabled. If the setting is disabled, click the status toggle to enable it. If a verification dialog displays, choose Turn On to verify the change.

The virtual background feature allows you to display an image or video as your background during a Zoom Meeting. This feature works best with a green screen and uniform lighting, to allow Zoom to detect the difference between you and your background.

You can also upload your own images or videos as a virtual background. There are no size restrictions when adding your own virtual backgrounds, but we recommend cropping the image to match the aspect ratio of your camera before uploading it.

For details, please visit “FAQ: How to enable Virtual Background for the Zoom meeting?” on the system requirements and procedures.

EdUHK Zoom Virtual Background Templates

The Communication Office has prepared 4 Zoom virtual background templates for use. EdUHK members are welcome to use it. These 4 templates are preloaded into the Zoom app. If you cannot find it or accidentally delete it, you can download it from the links below. (Note: Virtual background is not supported on Android devices.)

*Right click on the link and choose ‘Save link as…’

• Version A – EdUHK Zoom Photo
• Version B – EdUHK Zoom Drawing
• Version C – EdUHK Zoom Orange
• Version D – EdUHK Zoom Green

Please refer to the following contact information.

Pedagogical support (LTTC): lttc@eduhk.hk / 2948 7047
Classroom Support (OCIO): 2948 6529
IT Help Desk (OCIO): helpdesk@ocio.eduhk.hk / 2948 6601