The next part of the Digital Ministry series is all about the Zoom Video Conference software. Here’s a summary of the things that I’ve learned over the last week about some best practices:
1. Don’t be the host by yourself – if there’s another youth leader on the call with you, give them hosting duties so you can focus on teaching or connecting, rather than managing the participants on the call.
2. Don’t do video calls or record them without parental permission and liability.
3. Tell your students to use their real names + another identifier such as their grade or something as their logins for video call management. Utilize symbols for your leaders so that you can quickly identify everyone visually.
4. Tell everyone on the call to use headphones if possible. Also, remind your students to charge up their devices or have an extra battery on hand.
2. Don’t do video calls or record them without parental permission and liability.
3. Tell your students to use their real names + another identifier such as their grade or something as their logins for video call management. Utilize symbols for your leaders so that you can quickly identify everyone visually.
4. Tell everyone on the call to use headphones if possible. Also, remind your students to charge up their devices or have an extra battery on hand.
5. Tell your students to minimize distractions behind them – try to have them film so that the camera is facing a wall.
6. Zoom’s 40-minute limit removal for free accounts looks like to have been a fairly temporary deal. (Unless you have a student account with a university or public school somewhere and that organization has already requested from Zoom, the limits are back.) If you really want to connect with your students via Zoom and do meetings longer than an hour, then I highly recommend that you pay for the monthly $15.
7. Utilizing Zoom for prayer meetings and online Bible studies have been really great.
6. Zoom’s 40-minute limit removal for free accounts looks like to have been a fairly temporary deal. (Unless you have a student account with a university or public school somewhere and that organization has already requested from Zoom, the limits are back.) If you really want to connect with your students via Zoom and do meetings longer than an hour, then I highly recommend that you pay for the monthly $15.
7. Utilizing Zoom for prayer meetings and online Bible studies have been really great.
For Part One of this series, please click here.
