Hi this is Russell Stannard from teachertrainingvideos.com today we're
going to look at breakout rooms in zoom we're gonna look at one problem it's the problem that
literally all teachers that I trained have they kind of don't understand that when you
create breakout rooms and students are working in breakout rooms if they do something in that
breakout room and then come back to the main room they can't share what they've produced in
the breakout room for example if they open up the interactive whiteboard in their breakout room then
when they come back to the main room and they open up that interactive whiteboard it won't be there
because it's a completely different room with a completely different interactive whiteboard
so I'm going to demonstrate the problem to make it absolutely clear I'm gonna explain why it happens
and then I'm gonna give you a few solutions I hope this video is useful and if it is please
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also subscribe to me on my YouTube channel let's get started so let me try to explain the problem
when you've got a breakout room and then you make three or four other breakout rooms and your
students move into those breakout rooms those are separate zoom rooms zoom actually creates
for let's say for example four more rooms now when the students work in those breakout rooms that if
they do something the example on the interactive whiteboard then what they do on the interactive
whiteboard is in that breakout room and when you come back to the main room if the students
open up their interactive whiteboard from the main room they're not opening up the same interactive
whiteboard it's almost the same as if you send a student off to another class to write on the
whiteboard there when he comes back to your class then obviously the whiteboard still stays in the
other class and is exactly the same so for example if the students move into interactive moving to
their breakout rooms and they write something on the interactive whiteboard they come back to
the main room they can't share what's on their interactive whiteboard but there is Ellucian
however if you sent them back again into their breakout rooms again the interactive white would
of course would be there so always remember that everything in a breakout room is a separate room
and separate from who you are in the main room so let me give you a few tips on how you could
do with that problem it comes up all the time I do loads of training on on Zoom with teachers
and they're always struggling with what happens when students are working in breakout rooms okay
so let me demonstrate how this works I've got a student in the room with me I'm gonna click on
the breakout room I'm gonna put Tom into breakout room one so I click on open all rooms and then
Tom will now move into breakout room one so I'm gonna join Tom in breakout room one so I'm just
gonna come into breakout room one where tom is working what I'm going to do is now is I'm going
to share screen because I'm in room with Tom and I'm going to click on interactive whiteboard and
I'm gonna write on the board okay and now what I'm gonna do is I'm gonna leave room 1 so I'm
just gonna click on stop share screen I'm still in the breakout room with Tom but I'm gonna leave
now I'm gonna come back and join the main room so I was writing on my interactive whiteboard
so surely my interactive whiteboard will still be there so let's open it up and see so I'm going to
screen share again click on interactive whiteboard and you'll see there's nothing there because the
the interactive whiteboard that I created with Tom in breakout room 1 is different from the
interactive whiteboard Dyer and created when I'm in the main room and that will be the same
for all of your students all your students will be working on interactive whiteboards but when
they come back to the main room that interactive whiteboard won't be there so one trick to do is
to tell your students just before they end the session click on print screen then when they
come back to the main room tell them to quickly minimize the screen open up word so got the screen
minimize I'm going to open up word remember I clicked on pased and then all I need to do is
click on the word file and then click paste and it will paste in an image of what they wrote in
their interactive whiteboard now when they come back and if you want them now in the main room to
share what they were discussing in their breakout room they can click and simply screen share the
actual content in an image so that's one really obvious way of getting your students to make sure
that when they're working in breakout rooms that they write their ideas together on the interactive
whiteboard and then save them so that then when they come back to the main room they can show
them to the rest of the group now another way of dealing with this problem is to get the students
to open up a Google Doc so let's imagine now that we are in a breakout room okay one student simply
needs to minimize their their zoom come to their Google Drive so you can see I'm on my Google Drive
now and if you don't know where your Google Drive is just one student will simply need to be logged
into their Google come to click here and then come to drive so they come to their Drive and they'll
click on new doc and especially if they give it a little title so that for example class notes
now they can come back they can screen share they can screen share the Google Doc there it is they
can click on the share button and now they can be discussing and obviously the person who created
the doc can be taking the notes now this document will have nothing to do with the breakout rooms so
when the students come back to the main room and then they click on screen share they will have
the Google Doc because it will be open on their computer and that's another way of dealing with
that problem okay so are there any other useful tips when working with breakout rooms where the
answer is yes a couple of really important things first of all when you working in breakout rooms
when the students are working their breakout rooms turn off the webcams that is the teacher and the
students because when students move into breakout rooms it's quite a heavy process you're producing
multiple zoom rooms and working with your webcam on does two things a it slows down the processes
of the internet webcams our our internet heavy and two it means that the students can't actually do
anything on the screen the best thing for them to do is turn off their webcams and when they
get into the breakout room open up a Google Doc or open up an interactive whiteboard because what you
really want them to do is be writing down their ideas and then saving them so that when they come
back into the main room they can tell you what they were discussing but there's another reason
when you're working in breakout rooms if you as the teacher have got the video on when you come
into the breakout room you're conspicuous you can be clearly seen that you're enter in the room what
I like to do is to come into my breakout rooms come into the breakout rooms without my video
on and then I can kind of take a backseat now if the students are working on the screen and adding
that content into an interactive whiteboard is brilliant because I can see if they're working
well if I open up move into a breakout room and I can see that the students are already busy writing
out the points then I know the group is working if I go into a group and I haven't got anything
written then I know something's wrong they're not really working on the on the task and I can
say guys can I help you is the task clear etc so it's a great indication for you of how well
the group is working together and that's why i really suggest that you get them to turn off
their webcams now interestingly if they're working on an interactive whiteboard or a Google Doc and
their screen sharing and nobody has got their video on then it's quite likely that when you
come in the room they won't even know you're there so often I'll move into a breakout room or listen
I'll take a few notes and if I'm happy I'll just move out again go into another room if I see that
the students aren't working well because I've asked them to do a task on the Google Doc or on
the interactive whiteboard then I can say to them well what's happening can I help you is the task
clear so there's a couple of tips that really help the breakout rooms to work they really are useful
and if they're used effectively that can be very very powerful okay we hope that video was useful
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