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If you have a Covenant Seminary Zoom account, please first log in to My CTS. You’ll use your usual seminary email address and password to log in (if you don’t know what your seminary email address is, please ask Alissa Rockney). Once you’ve logged in, navigate to My CTS > Academics > Zoom. This will take you to your Zoom profile.

Once you are there, please click Schedule a Meeting at the top.

• Give your meeting a title (a description is optional).
• Under When, check the box that says Recurring Meeting, since you will be using this meeting multiple times.
• In the dropdown menu, click No fixed time.
• If Meeting Password is checked, be sure to UN-check that box.
• Scroll down to Meeting Options. Here, there are two settings you need to change:
  • (1) check the box next to Enable Join before Host
  • (2) Record the Meeting Automatically (when you check this, a new option will appear – choose the button next to In the Cloud).
• Then, click Save at the bottom.

When the next screen appears, under the place where it says Invite Attendees, click Copy the Invitation. This provides students the most options for audio if their computers do not have a microphone built in, or if their computer is otherwise not working.

Paste the invitation into a Canvas announcement to be sent to students.

If you’re looking at these instructions and getting overwhelmed, and you want Alissa Rockney to be able to schedule meetings for you, there is a way for you to enable this! On the same page in Zoom, find Settings in the lefthand menu. Scroll almost all the way down, until you see Assign Scheduling Privilege to +. Click the +, and then type in Alissa’s email address (alissa.rockney@covenantseminary.edu) and click Assign. Then please notify Alissa that you’d like her help in scheduling your Zoom meeting.

This is the easy part! Remember the Invitation you copied into Canvas? There is a link there. Click on the link to open the meeting! When you click on the link, you may be given an option to click a button that says Join with Computer Audio – if so, please click that. Once you do, there should be a microphone icon in the bottom left of your screen. It should denote in green whether your audio is working or not. Right next to that, there is a video icon. If there is a red bar through it, your video is turned off. You can click it to turn your video on. You can also send a message to students if you’re having trouble with technology, or if you’d like to send them a link or some text—you’ll do this by going to the Chat button at the bottom of the screen.

You may wish to designate a student in the class to be the “host” of the meeting. The advantage of this is that the student can then mute others if there are distracting external sounds, and/or help troubleshoot if others are having trouble with Zoom. If you would like to do this, please ask the student beforehand if they are willing to perform this function for you and if they have experience hosting a Zoom meeting. Then:

• When you enter the meeting, click on the three dots in the upper right corner of the student’s picture, and choose Make Host.

To end your meeting when you are ready, click End Meeting at the bottom right hand corner.

Other tutorials and resources

• Running a Zoom meeting 10 minute video

Here are a couple of brief videos made by Dr. Robert Kim about how to use Zoom.

• How to share your screen
• How to make someone the host of a meeting

Before you start your Zoom meeting, go to Settings, and scroll until you find the In-Meeting (Advanced) section. Breakout Room should be the first option under that section. Toggle the button there until it turns blue. Check the box underneath next to Allow host to assign participants to breakout rooms when scheduling, and click Save (this allows you to choose who is in each group; if you want random groups always, you don’t need to check this box). Then, when you open your meeting, you will see four squares at the bottom of your screen, along with the words Breakout Rooms. Clicking this will bring up a box that allows you to choose the number of rooms (so, if you want three groups, you change the number to three). Choose whether you want to assign the groups automatically or manually (automatically is default). Then click Create Rooms, and follow the prompts from there.

To share your screen, be sure that you have the document or website open that you want to share with students. Click on the green Share Screen button at the bottom. Then click on the box containing the window you want to share, and click Share. If you are sharing a video clip, be sure to check the box beside Share computer sound before clicking Share.

If you have an iPad with an Apple pencil, or even a tablet, you may be able to share that as a second screen, so that you have a “whiteboard.” Just click iPhone/iPad and then Share. Then go to your iPhone/iPad and follow the instructions there (note that both your computer and your iPhone/iPad must be on the same internet connection for this to work; it typically does not work on campus but works well at home.

This is most easily accomplished with Zoom. Panopto can provide higher quality but is a bit more complicated (see Using Canvas if you want to use Panopto).

With Zoom, set up your meeting as usual (see How do I schedule a Zoom meeting?). Although there will be no students at the meeting, simply look at the camera and record your video (be sure your computer sound is on); the recording will happen automatically if you set it up as described. You’ll get an email once the recording has processed.

To post this recording to Canvas to share with students, you have two options:

• Simply copy the shareable link (i.e., the one that does NOT say “for host only”) from the email you receive from Zoom into a Canvas announcement (or, if you want to organize it by weeks, into a Canvas Module). 

• Download the recording from Zoom (you can do this by clicking the “for host only” link in the email you receive and following the prompts you see there). Then, go to your course in Canvas, and click on Panopto Video on the lefthand side. Then, click Create at the top. That will open a dropdown menu; from that menu, choose Upload Media. You can then either click on the box that appears, or drag your video recording from your downloads folder into that box. It will begin uploading (it usually does not take longer than about 3-4 minutes, though the speed will depend on your internet speed). Once it is uploaded, you will need to make sure students can see it. Do this via the Modules tab. Go to Modules in your Canvas course, and click the + (it will be gray). Choose External Tool from the dropdown menu. Then choose Panopto Video. Find your video that you just uploaded, and click on it, then click Insert at the bottom. Then click Add Item. Once you do that, be sure to click the open circle next to the module that appears so that a green checkmark appears (that means it is published for students to see it).

My or my student's sound doesn't work

• Check to make sure that you are not muted (look in the bottom left corner of your screen). If you are muted, please un-mute yourself by clicking the microphone button.
• If you are not muted, try muting yourself and then un-muting.
• If that does not work, try leaving the meeting and re-entering the meeting.
• If it still does not work, call the number in the Zoom invitation from your phone to join the audio that way.

My or my student's video isn't showing up

• Check to make sure your video is turned on (look in the bottom left corner of your screen). If your video is turned off, please turn it back on.
• If your video is turned on, and it is still not working, click the arrow next to the video button to see that the correct webcam is selected. You can also view your video settings there.
• If none of that works, please try leaving the meeting and re-entering the meeting.
• If your video still does not work, but you can see your students, try to hold the meeting as usual.

Some students appear to be missing in Zoom, though actually present

This seems to be a strange glitch with Zoom that can happen on occasion, though it is rare. First, please try asking everyone to leave the meeting and rejoin it in a moment (you should do the same). If the same few students still are not there, please ask them to call your phone (or the phone of a friend in the class) and listen in via speakerphone, if they’re able. If that will not work, the students struggling to join can watch the recording of the meeting later.

If all else fails...

Contact Jessie Swigart and Alissa Rockney simultaneously for further support.