Since we went into quarantine back in March and schools closed, video conferencing instantly became a must have. One platform came out of seemly nowhere to become the “go to” platform that many educators used. This platform is Zoom. While there has been a lot of positive press about Zoom, there has also been an almost equal amount of negative press with the headline being Zoombombers. I have been working with many educators on using Zoom and their one major reservation is they do not want to be the newest victim of a Zoombomber. You might be one of those very educators. So in this post, we are going to be talking about ways in which you can secure your Zoom sessions.
Use a Unique ID
When scheduling a Zoom meeting, alway have it generate a new unique ID and never use your PMI (Personal Meeting ID)
Require a Password
Always require participants to enter a password when they are joining your Zoom meeting.
Enable the Waiting Room
Always require participants to enter a password when they are joining your Zoom meeting.
Only the Host Can Share Screen
In your Zoom settings, ensure that only the host can share their screen. This can also be enabled in a meeting by clicking on the up arrow next to the green Screen Share button.
Lock Meeting
Once all of your students have arrived, lock your meeting. This does not allow anyone else to be able to join your meeting. This can be enabled by clicking on the Security button or from the participants window by clicking on the three dots in the bottom right-hand corner.
Disable Private Chat
In your Zoom settings, make sure that private chat is turned off. Also, within a meeting, you can alter the chat settings where participants can only chat with the host. This can be done by clicking on the three dots in the bottom right-hand corner of the chat window and choosing “Host Only”.
Utilize the Security Button
While in a meeting, clicking on the security button allows you to control settings such as allowing the participants to change their name, turning on or off chat, locking the meeting, and removing participants.
Disabling Someone’s Camera
As the host, you can turn off a participants camera by hovering over their name in the participants window, click more, and choose stop video.
These are just some of the ways I go about securing my Zoom sessions. Here is a link to an infographic outlining these security measures.