Keeping in touch with our family, friends, and co-workers are important for our emotional health. We want to know all about our son’s wedding plans, our friend’s baby shower, and even how their workplace is handling life’s newest unexpected event?
Social Distancing resulted in College classes and church services being cancelled. Even Disney closed their gates. Now everyone is isolating themselves, but Isolation makes us feel all alone. It is the cheetah’s tactic to isolate the gazelle from the herd before it pounces. So how do we stay connected during the world’s attempt to isolate the COVID-19 illness itself?
If you were planning to meet with a group smaller than 100 people, then you could use Zoom, a free online conferencing tool. They offer a basic account which allows a 40 minute meeting.
The first step is to visit their website and sign up for the Free account. Once you register they will send you an email to finish setting up your account. Then you are all set to schedule your first online meeting.
You type in the name of your meeting, add a quick description, and select the date and time. Select the amount of time that you expect the meeting to last, but remember the basic account ends at 40 minutes. You can immediately open up another meeting, but everyone would have to leave and then join the meeting again.
You can make a recurring meeting and generating the meeting id automatically will give you a new link for each meeting. Don’t require a meeting password, because that may hinder someone not showing up if they should forget it! You can have your video on or off, whatever you are comfortable with. If you do not use a video camera, whatever name you used to log in will appear on the screen for the participants to view whenever you speak. You can also upload an image to appear as your icon as well.
Choose both for the computer audio and telephone. This allows your participants to join with their mobile device to call into the meeting. I do not recommend to allow participants to join before you show up to host the meeting, but that option is there in case you need it. Muting participants as they enter is a good idea because some people do not expect their microphone to be on automatically. This avoids you hearing the dog barking, t.v. blaring, and children squealing. Once the participant is ready, they can unmute their microphone. The free account does not allow you to record in the cloud, but the meeting will be saved to whatever device you use for the meeting. If you would like to name an alternative host, you can paste in their emails. Once all the settings are complete, you can click save.
Once the meeting has saved, an invitation will appear on the right hand side of the page. You can copy the invitation and place it in a text message or email to the people you would like to invite to your meeting.
When the person wants to join your meeting at the appropriate time that you determined, all they need to do is to copy and paste the web address or URL into a browser. A notification that shows an arrow pointing towards the file in the bottom left will appear if you use Firefox browser. Clicking on the file will open the application.The message below will appear.
Click on open link. Your meeting controls will appear. Whoever you invite may be required to type in a name. They won’t be able to enter the meeting until you start the meeting.
Once you start the meeting, you will see the list of participants as they enter. As the host you can mute microphones and turn off participants videos even if they enable them. The whole point is to talk to people, but muting microphones comes in handy if background noise is making it difficult to hold conversation with the person who is speaking especially if you have a large group.
Whether you are a face to face teacher who is moving classes online for the first time, a Sunday school teacher who is determined to continue teaching, or a Bible Study group leader who would like to continue the group meetings. Zoom is a great tool to use!
It is the tool that I use for my online Bible Study Groups.
Join my next online bible study as we read Jill Briscoe’s book, Here I am Lord, Send someone else!
All you need to do is download the book for free on Hoopla if you have a public library card. Or you can purchase the book via my affiliate link:
Here I am Lord Send Someone Else
Another option is to join a FB group to connect to other women. We will begin reading the same book starting May 11th, but you can join today to find out what I read in the bible today.
Another option is to join my email list to receive weekly emails to encourage you. I just need an email address so I know where to send the gifts I have created for you. Click here to join the list for the online bible study.
Resources:
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Briscoe, Jill. Here I am Lord Send Someone Else
Abide in Christ's Love 
Thanks for this post. I just started using Zoom. It’s pretty cool and not difficult to use. During this period of social isolation, may we realize how much we really need our fellow human beings to be happy and stop talking each other for granted.
Good morning, thanks for sharing how easy it is to use. Many people are wary of technology but it can definitely help us to fight isolation and to keep us connected. We need to continue to check on our friends, family, and church members. This is the closest to the real thing that we can achieve during this time of social distancing.