Hello, and welcome to Getting Started with Zoom. Today, we’re going to talk about how you can use Zoom for meetings and video calls. We’re going to talk about how you can set up your Zoom account, as well as make it safe. And we’re also going to talk about the equipment that you’ll need to get started with video calling. We’re going to start with that first.
What do you need to start using Zoom?
So what will you need if you’d like to start using Zoom? First, you’ll either need a smartphone with a camera and a microphone, of course, but all smartphones have that. If you don’t want to use your smartphone, you can use a computer or a laptop. Now, many laptops actually have a camera and microphone built into them, but not all of them do, so you’ll wanna check on that. If you’d like to use a desktop computer, you may need to add external accessories to use Zoom. And some of those accessories are going to be a webcam, and you’ll also need a microphone and speakers. The key with this is that you need to be seen and see people, and you also need to hear people and be heard. So you’ll need all the equipment in order to make that happen. Now, one of the things that I like to point out is sometimes people need to be in a meeting or a call and they’d like that to be private so that they’re not bothering the people around them. One of the tools that I like to use are headphones or earbuds that have a built-in microphone with them. And you can actually see some samples here. I use earbuds myself, here, so that I can listen to a video call without disturbing anyone else that’s in the room. So those are a nice option. And many of the earbuds come with a microphone that hangs from the cord and it hangs about right here and so it’s very easy to use. So there are several options out there. The other thing that you’ll need, if you want to successfully have a video call is you’ll need a strong internet connection. Now, you don’t need a lot of internet speed because the program will adapt to your speed of internet. So if you don’t have the fastest internet, your picture may be a little bit fuzzy, but you’ll still be able to see the other caller. So generally speaking, Zoom likes you to have about 1.2 megabits per second. And if you don’t know how fast your internet is, go ahead and go to speedtest.net and follow the instructions there to see how fast your internet speeds are. If it’s under one megabit per second, you probably aren’t going to have a great experience with Zoom and you may consider using your smartphone instead.
Setting up your Zoom Account
Next, we’re going to talk about setting up Zoom account. So let’s get started. First, you’ll want to visit zoom.us to get started. Once you’re on this website, you’ll want to sign up for a free account. Now, Zoom actually has free versions of their account but they also have paid versions. For most of what you’re going to do, you’ll probably only need the free version of their account. So let’s get started setting that account up. You’ll notice in the upper right-hand corner, there’s a big orange button that says Sign Up, It’s Free. So you go ahead and click that. And this section here, you can sign up using an email address, which is very easy. You just type your email address in here. Or if you already have an account with Google or Facebook, you can use the information from those accounts to sign in with Zoom. It makes the setup process a little bit easier. For the purpose of this presentation, we’re going to use an email address to sign in to Zoom. I’m going to type in my email address. I’m going to hit Sign Up. And at this point, it’s going to send me an email message where I need to confirm my account. And so at that point, I’m gonna go over to my Gmail account and click the button and confirm that account’s set up. So here we are in my Gmail account and I’ve received the email from Zoom. And once I click this Activate button, I will be able to go back to Zoom and it will start my account up. And at this point, it will take you back to a section where you can put in your name and some information about yourself and create a password. So it’s really that simple. You’ll just be able to just put your name in and proceed there. And then after that, it brings you to what is called your account page. And this is your account page. Now, if you’d like to schedule an a meeting in advance or a video call in advance, you can click on the upper right-hand corner here where it says Schedule a Meeting. And this is kind of fun because you can add some certain safety features in right at this time. So let’s go ahead and I’ll show you what this looks like. In this section, you’ll be able to title your meeting. So let’s say your meeting is Chat with Amy. And you can enter as much or as little information as you’d like, but you choose a date and the time and how long the meeting is going to last. Now, for your free account, Zoom lets you have a 40-minute video call for free with up to three participants. After that, they want you to pay a fee to have access to their software. So, but for most people, this is all that we really need. And you’ll take note of this passcode. You don’t have to necessarily do anything with it, but this is a code that will allow only people that you want to to come into the meeting. So this is kind of a handy thing. There’s also a feature here where you can turn on and off the video for certain participants. So if you are hosting a meeting and you really don’t need to see anyone else in the meeting, you can actually turn on the video for yourself, but turn off the video for everybody who comes into the meeting room. And if you want to video chat with your friend, for instance, you’ll wanna turn this on. There’s also some other features here. This section here will allow participants to join at any time. That means that anybody that you invite to the meeting can pop into the meeting whenever they’re ready, even if they’re running late. Now, if you’re doing something where you’ve sent out a big, long email or a big invitation, you may want to not click this because when somebody wants to join the meeting, you’ll actually get a pop-up saying Amy wants to join the meeting and then you’ll be able to click OK. So this is just a safety feature from trying to not allow people into meeting that shouldn’t be there. This is also a nice feature that when people first come into the meeting, that they’re on mute and this is helpful because sometimes when people first start a meeting, they may be coughing or they may be chatting with someone in the room. And so by clicking mute participants upon entry, you can make it so people are on mute when they first enter the meeting. And then there’s some other features here. And once you decide what your schedule is, you’ll just hit Save. And it will give you some options to copy an invitation. Here, you just hit Copy. And then you can email this text to your friend that you want to join the meeting. Very easy.
Making your first Video Call
Now, if you wanna start a meeting right away, you can actually click this button up here in the right-hand corner and say Host a Meeting. And if you want your video to be on for yourself, you actually will select the With Video On feature. Let me show you what that looks. At this point, you’ll often get a pop-up if you’re on a desktop or a laptop that will say do you wanna open Zoom Meetings in a desktop application? And if you are on a laptop or a desktop, don’t be alarmed. That is a normal thing. You can go ahead and either select download or if you’ve done Zoom Meetings before, you can just click this Open in Zoom Meetings. And this just helps the software work a little bit better on desktop and laptop, so you can click that button here. And let me just bring this over here. And a popup will come up and you can test your speaker and your microphone before you enter a meeting. I really like this. If it’s the first day you’re doing this, or maybe you haven’t had a meeting in a while, go ahead and you can click this and you can test to make sure that your microphone and speaker are working before you enter the meeting room. And if you’d gone ahead and tested that, you can just click the blue button and a meeting will open up and hopefully, your friend will be there with their face and everything will be great. You can see who is in the meeting here under the Participants section. And if you’re in the meeting and you wanna check out your security features, you can click this security button. And it will enable a variety of security features. One is called Lock Meeting. So if you’re in a meeting with a friend and you’re doing a video call and you’re the only ones who are going to be in that meeting, you can go ahead and lock that meeting so that nobody else can pop into that meeting no matter what. And so it’ll just be you and your friend having a video call. There’s also some other features here that will allow participants, they can either do the chat or participants can share their screen. Check mark or uncheck mark those, however you would like your video call experience to be. And then once you’re done with your video call, you can just hit the red End button. And you can end the meeting for all if you’re the one who started the meeting. And if you didn’t start the meeting, you’ll have just a gray box here that says Leave Meaning, so if you were the one who started the meeting, just click that red button and everything is done. So happy zooming, everyone, enjoy!