Zoom meetings are now available as activities in Moodle courses. They carry many of the same properties as other activities: they can be graded, access can be restricted by date, prerequisite, group, etc., and completion criteria can be set. These meetings could be useful for office hours, interaction with remote instructors or presenters, and so on.
Meetings are added to your course like any other activity. They just have a few special configuration options. Once in the meeting itself, all the usual Zoom features are available. To add a Zoom meeting to your course, follow these instructions.
- From the top page of your course, click the grey gear icon and select Turn editing on. Then, in the activities and resources list, scroll to the section where you want to add the meeting, and click Add an activity or resource.
- In the Add an activity or resource window, scroll to the end of the Activities list and click the radio button next to Zoom meeting, the click Add.
- The Adding a new Zoom meeting window will appear.
- In the General section, enter a meeting name or subject in the Topic field.
- If you like, provide a longer-form description in the Description field. In this field, you may use formatted text, links, images, and so on.
- If you want this description to appear in the activities and resources list on the course page (instead of just on the activity page), select Display description on course page.
- In the When/Duration block, set a date, time, and length for the meeting.
- If this is to be a regularly-occurring meeting, select Recurring.
- If it’s a webinar rather than a standard meeting, select Webinar1.
- If you want to set a password for the meeting, enter it in the Password field
- A known issue with non-password-protected meeting is that anyone with the URL can enter them…this will be true of meetings created via Moodle as well. Configure accordingly.
- Tick the appropriate buttons (On or Off) for host and participant video mode when they enter the meeting (On is the default – T&I recommends not changing this without a specific reason).
- Set your audio preferences. Telephony means the user call in via telephone (cell or landline). VoIP means they’ll use the computer’s audio. VoIP and Telephony allows participants to use either option – this is the default, and T&I recommends not changing it without a specific reason.
- Finally, Enable join before host will, if selected, allow meeting participants to join the virtual meeting room before the host arrives, or in the event that the host cannot attend. T&I recommends selecting this option.
Additional settings for grading, common module options, access restriction, activity completion, tagging, and competencies follow Moodle’s standard format, and function as they would with any other activity. When you’ve finished configuring your activity, click Save and return to course. Clicking on the activity at this stage opens its information page, which contains the meeting’s configuration, a link to it, and an optional downloadable ICS file, which allows participants to add the meeting to their preferred calendar (Outlook, iCal, gCal, Calendar.app, etc.).
If you have questions about this process, contact ti@davidson.edu. For suggestions for incorporating Zoom into your classes, contact Sundi Richard.
- What’s the difference between a regular Zoom meeting and a Zoom webinar? Primarily style and control. In meeting, there is a single host who can share hosting with other participants. In a webinar, there are hosts and panelists, who can present, and attendees, who can participate in Q&A and live polls. Most people are probably more familiar with meetings.