By this point, if you are teaching this Spring you should have received an email from IT Services about your Zoom account.

At present, you will use your CNET and password to log in to Zoom, and there are three different ways you can log in:

  1. Going to https://uchicago.zoom.us/
  2. From the main Zoom website, at https://zoom.us/
  3. Through the Zoom application (this article has some information on that)

Once you log in, you should be able to find your Meeting ID (XXX-XXX-XXX) and personal meeting room URL (https://uchicago.zoom.us/j/xxxxxxxxx). Copy and paste this link and keep it handy/bookmark it! It is what you will send to your students to join a meeting in your personal meeting room.

You also have the option of creating a customized personal link. This is basically just a version of the link that replaces the number with some text of your choice (e.g., your last name), but it sends participants to the same place.  

There are LOTS of things that you can control within these settings, and you should feel free to if you’re curious, but your time and energy is probably better spent at this stage becoming more familiar with the basics of holding meetings (see 14:36-18:11 of our Zoom webinar to see what I consider basic vs more advanced functions).

Once you’ve got your personal URL, I recommend clicking that URL or entering it into a browser to enter your personal meeting room. So far, I’ve seen a couple of things instructors need to do to get their computers set up:

1. Once you’re in the meeting, try sharing your screen (clicking the green button at the bottom of the Zoom window). Once you share your screen, it may say something about needing to give Zoom permission to record your screen. If that happens and you’re on a Mac, click ‘Open System Preferences,’ then check the box next to Zoom. Your computer may tell you you need to quit Zoom; do that. Then go back into your meeting, try sharing your screen again. It should work this time.

2. In order to share computer sound (e.g., whenever you are playing audio or video files, YouTube videos, etc, and you want your students to hear it), you will click Share Screen, then check the box in the bottom left corner that says ‘Share computer sound.’ The first time you do this, you may need to enter your computer’s password, to give the Zoom app permission.

With questions for this or any other Zoom-related issues, contact Nick or Rod and we can walk through this with you together.