Zoom is a great tool. It has been around for quite a while but has just exploded in education along with this virus crap! Why do I suggest NOT using it then? Because we have had 2 other tools that we pay a lot of money for that do the same thing. Google Meet and Microsoft Teams. Both are behind our district logins and are secure. Neither are new and I have been using them for a while. Some one asked why I have not done any training on them and the answer is the same. No one comes! I am always happy to do training - please let me know when you will be available. (BTW - You have not been trained on zoom either!)
Here are a couple of problems with Zoom in edu.
- It is free to users, now. When you pay for items you mainly pay for your privacy! See the correlation there?
- The defaults are NOT set to best privacy for children. You are viewing/sharing minors in their home and do not know the security defaults of the software you're using.
- By default there is a public URL for your zoom link. Most of you will use it because it is easy. Creepers can find it too! Remember you are dealing with children and just published a url with their pictures and names. A nine digit code found by computer hacker is easy to break.
- You CAN change these setting to make it more secure, but I am not showing you how. Why? Because we have two other options that I have shown you. Please use the software your employer provides.
If you use Zoom - you're on your own on.