I’ve done plenty of Zoom calls and PowerPoints separately, but never both at the same time. Can I, or do I need two PCs?
The situation: an in-person meeting where we will show a PPT using a Dell laptop connected to a projector. We’d also like to let people Zoom in to the meeting. The Zoom part will probably be one-way. We’ll want a live camera to show the speakers, and will switch the Zoom feed to the PPT at some points.
We probably won’t have people Zooming in address the people in the meeting, or share their screens, but if that’s possible, please explain how.
ISTM that even if it’s possible on one computer, it’ll be a bit of a pain for one operator to try to coordinate both the PPT presentation and the Zoom meeting.
What do you think? Easy-peasy? Possible, but a headache? Impossible?
Set up the laptop with 2 monitors - one is the laptop screen and the second one is the projector. Put the powerpoint on the projector screen, and the zoom meeting on the laptop screen.
Absolutely. It’s kind of a core feature of things like MS Teams and Zoom. You can share and un-share your screen throughout the meeting as you see fit. If you set the projector up as a second screen, rather than just mirroring your primary screen, then fumbling the two programs is extremely easy.
If you don’t care about audience interaction on Zoom, you don’t even need to see the Zoom window. You can show the presentation on the projector, use the laptop screen for the preview, set Zoom to show the presentation window, and then just keep Zoom minimized in the background for the rest of the talk.
However, that’s a good way to make sure your audience just tunes you out and works on other stuff during the presentation.
If it’s a one-way, non-interactive presentation, why not just record the presentation for them so they can watch it on their own and not have to wait around while you fiddle with windows and sharing and microphones, etc.?
On the other hand, if you actually want a two-way, interactive meeting:
When we ran webinars during COVID for an online audience, we did use multiple computers. The main laptop was for the speaker doing the presentation; sometimes the speaker would control it themselves with a wireless presentation remote, or an assistant would help them.
Another computer would be there specifically to manage Zoom as a separate audience. This computer’s Zoom would be logged in as a co-host and utilize Zoom’s powerful meeting moderation functions. For example, the audience would normally be muted and unable to speak/share on their own. However, they can type questions into the chat and/or raise their hands to be put in a queue for questions. The moderator would then wait for a good time during the meeting to say “Hey presenter, we have a couple questions from Zoom”. And then they’d either read aloud the text questions themselves, or they can choose to allow the question asker to speak and share their screen. Afterward, they’d clear the raised hand and move to the next person in the queue.
The controls are powerful enough that it’s probably worth doing a dry run with the host and co-host and a fake audience member or two. That way everyone can see how the controls work and not have to fiddle with it too much during the live presentation. It takes a few min to get used to, but used well, they can make a hybrid meeting (as in in-person + online) much more interesting and interactive for both sets of audiences.
If you have a monitor connected to a laptop, and Zoom that way, it is identical to having a projector hooked up. I don’t run Webinar zoom meetings, but regular Zoom meetings show thumbnails of the audience on top of the shared screen.
Yes, it is a good idea to have someone not the speaker run the meeting and collect comments. I’m Zoom-master of our writing club, and let people in, but now I’m also president and have to run the meeting also. Kind of a pain. If it gets too much of a pain I can let someone else be co-host.
I’ve had audience members share their screens in business type Zoom meetings, but it has never come up in a speaker situation. It is possible, but it always takes a while and provides an opportunity for problems.
That’s a big part of the Zoom moderator’s responsibilities (managing the audience). They’re the one who would go “Joe, are you there? Hmm. Looks like Joe is having some technical problems, let’s move to the next person and we’ll circle back to Joe later.” Then the presentation continues and the moderator chats with Joe in a DM to work it out, or just asks them to type their question.
They would also consolidate similar questions, like “And we have a few questions about ______ and how _____. What do you think?”
The presenter normally doesn’t have the time to handle all that during the live talk, so having someone else co-host and moderate is often the difference between a well-run, professional webinar and a amateurish mess filled with “Hello? Can you hear me?” from random people joining halfway through.
Zoom offers the tools to make this really seamless, but you have to learn to use them and practice beforehand.
I tried to do a brief test today before today’s meeting got started, and when I launched Zoom, the PPT, which was cycling pictures automatically every 5 seconds, stopped, and the clicker no longer controlled the slides.
Hard to say without seeing it. Can you record the process on your phone?
Maybe Zoom took PowerPoint out of full screen mode and it automatically paused? You should be able to make sure Zoom is targeting the right window and then just resume the presentation.
Doesn’t really address my point. I’ve been running Zoom meetings for my club since we moved online during Covid. I’ve trained people to raise their hand for questions for the speaker. That works very well. But there is no reason for someone with a question to share their screen.
There is an option under Slide Show to automatically advance to the next slide, which is helpful if you use PowerPoint for, say, a display of pictures. Maybe you enabled that by mistake? Under Durations there is an Advance Slide option, which can be after a mouse click or after a certain amount of time. Maybe that’s it.
Sorry, it wasn’t meant to challenge your point, just provide additional commentary.
If your viewers never need to share their screens, great. One less thing that could go wrong. But depending on the talk, sometimes that’s needed, or at least sometimes they want to show their camera and use their mic.
Having a designated moderator deal with all that allows the speaker to focus on the presentation and makes the overall flow smoother.
If audience interaction isn’t needed, then that’s unnecessary.
I don’t use the webinar version, and in my version I can mute people but never turn on their mics. Ditto for video. Makes sense, since I would suppose there could be all kinds of problems if you turned on someone’s video without warning.
People do share their screens during committee reports, but that kind of meeting has no guests and is a bit more flexible than a bunch of members and an outside speaker.
We have speakers log in early so they can test screen sharing and get comfortable. It is surprising how many feel better about doing this.