Zoom: Getting Started, Getting Help, and Using Zoom with Canvas

Zoom Flex Workshop Recordings


Zoom Logo

Zoom provides a reliable, easy-to-use, mobile-friendly tool for live, recordable online presentations, meetings, and discussions with audio, video, chat, screen sharing, polling, and more. It can be used within Canvas or independently.

Zoom Pro is available to all MiraCosta faculty and staff at no charge. Students don’t use the Zoom Pro account but can use free Zoom basic accounts. Nobody at MiraCosta should be paying anything to use Zoom!

The version of Zoom that MiraCostans use changed after the fall 2020 semester; MiraCosta Zoom is now accessed at miracosta-edu.zoom.us rather than conferzoom.org or cccconfer.zoom.us. Faculty need to sign in to Zoom with their MiraCosta College login and password to obtain unlimited pro (“licensed”) access to all features of Zoom, including:

  • Unlimited meeting lengths and very large numbers of attendees
  • Recordings “in the cloud” so that you do not need to manage large files of your recorded meetings
  • Auto-transcription of your cloud-based Zoom recordings

This page includes basic technical how-to information and resources on using Zoom in general, and Zoom use in tandem with Canvas. Please see our separate Teaching with Zoom at MiraCosta College page for more detailed tips about teaching securely, effectively, and accessibly with Zoom.

Log On to Zoom at MiraCosta College

  1. To access your Zoom account via the web go to: https://miracosta-edu.zoom.us
    Sign in with your MiraCosta College employee account and two-factor authentication (2FA).
  2. To sign into Zoom app(s) on desktop and mobile:
    1. Open the installed Zoom app. (Download the latest Zoom apps from http://zoom.us/download )
    2. Select the ‘Sign in with SSO’ button or option at the app login screen
    3. Enter our ‘Company Domain’: miracosta-edu
    4. You will be directed to our MiraCosta login portal where you will enter your MiraCosta credentials.

MiraCosta Zoom Help and FAQS

  • Zoom help for MiraCosta staff and faculty is through the Employee Helpdesk:
  • Zoom help for MiraCosta students is through the Student Help Desk
  • General MiraCosta Zoom account help and FAQs (You will need your MiraCosta credentials to access this).
  • How do I get a Zoom account? If you had a pro Zoom account through ConferZoom prior to 2021, it should have been automatically migrated to the MiraCosta Zoom, and there’s nothing you need to do. If you did not previously have a Pro Zoom account, and need to create a MiraCosta Zoom account, sign in to the MiraCosta HelpDesk in the Portal and select the NEW Zoom Account Request option.
  • What if I’m having trouble with my Zoom account? Sign in to the MiraCosta HelpDesk in the Portal and click the User Accounts button to request help.
  • What happened to my Zoom recordings made before 2021? They are still in your Zoom account! The old links to Zoom recordings will still work, but a message will briefly appear when people click an old link. If you update an old recording link with the new MiraCosta Zoom URL (replace cccconfer.zoom.us with miracosta-edu.zoom.us in the link) it will work seamlessly.
  • What happened to my recurring Zoom meetings I set up before 2021? Similar to your recordings, old links to recurring Zoom meetings will still work, but a message will appear when people click an old link. If you go to your Zoom account, you’ll see that your meetings have been migrated in, and you can get a new invitation. You can also simply update a meeting link created before 2021 with the new MiraCosta Zoom URL (replace cccconfer.zoom.us with miracosta-edu.zoom.us in the link).
  • What happened to Reports from Zoom meetings held before 2021? They are gone, sorry.
  • How much storage do I have for Zoom recordings? As of spring 2021, there is not a limit; however, this may change in the future if we do not manage our recordings well. Please delete recordings that you do not need.

Zoom Documentation

The following Zoom trainings, documentation, and resources can help you stay informed:

Using Zoom with Canvas

You can schedule and run video meetings directly within Canvas, using the new Zoom integration (this is MUCH improved over what what we had prior to 2021). To get started and learn more about the Zoom/Canvas integration, see directions below; for more details you may be interested in:

You may also share Zoom links and recordings inside of Canvas without using the integration.

Canvas Integration with Zoom

  1. Enter your Canvas course
  2. Click Settings on the course menu
  3. Click the Navigation tab
Zoom Canvas LTI Step 2 and 3
  1. Click the 3 dots to the right of Zoom and select Enable.
  2. Click the Save button
  1. Click the Zoom course menu item which will appear in your course menu.
Zoom Canvas LTI Step 6

Now you can schedule and access Zoom meetings from inside of Canvas.

Viewing All My Zoom Meetings in Canvas

When you first enter Zoom on Canvas you will see only the Zoom meetings associated with the Canvas course you entered from. To see and access all Zoom meetings within your account, click the link ‘All My Zoom Meetings‘.

All My Zoom Meetings link in Canvas

PlayPosit in Canvas

Playposit logo

PlayPosit Flex Workshop Recordings


PlayPosit is an interactive video learning tool that is fully integrated with Canvas. Playposit allows instructors to create activities using videos from 3C Media, YouTube, or other video sources.  

MiraCosta has piloted PlayPosit for several years. As of 2020-21, PlayPosit is now available to all MiraCosta faculty through a CCC system license.

PlayPosit allows you to:

  • Layer a variety of assessment activities within a video, creating a quiz with results going automatically into the Canvas gradebook. (Canvas Studio has similar functionality, but with fewer and simpler question types than PlayPosit.)
  • Track detailed viewing analytics for videos

PlayPosit Guides

See the Quick Start Guide, or view more detailed guides embedded below.

Building a Bulb in PlayPosit 3.0

CCC TechConnect – 3CMedia Hosted Video

Assigning Bulbs in Canvas

Monitor Analytics

Playposit in MiraCosta College Canvas

Playposit is an external tool. One of the most common places you will find it is within the RCE (Rich Text Editor).

New RCE

Additional Support

Perusall

Perusall Flex Workshop Recordings

  • Social Annotation with Perusall (Zoom Recording, 1 hour 5 minutes) – 1/16/2023 workshop by Jim Julius, Michael from Perusall, Rob Bond, John Kirwan, & Aaron Roberts

Perusall

Perusall makes it possible to have students comment, discuss, and share by annotating a document or image. Some possibilities might include:

  • annotating the textbook together (Perusall offers many common textbooks within its framework — see the catalog)
  • uploading pdf files and having students highlight and annotate
  • uploading images or videos and having students annotate

Perusall has been used independently by a number of MiraCosta faculty for several years, but starting in 2022 the college has licensed it, making it easier for all faculty to engage students in these kinds of rich, interactive learning opportunities. Perusall can be quickly added to any Canvas course. MiraCosta instructor and online mentor Lisa M. Lane has been using Perusall for some time, and has provided instructions and videos below to help faculty get started. You can also reach out to Lisa (email: llane@miracosta.edu ) to arrange for 1-1 mentoring support.

Before class starts: set up Perusall

To get started, you need to set up a site in Perusall. Perusall calls this a “course”. There are two ways to do this.

1: For Canvas courses organized around activity types

If your course materials for students are already set up by type (quizzes, lectures, readings) in Canvas, you may want to add Perusall to the menu. 

  1. Click Settings at the bottom of your course menu
  2. Click the Navigation tab
Settings, then Navigation

3. Click the gear icon to the right of Perusall

4. Select +Enable

5. Click the Save button

The Perusall link now appears in your course menu. You can click on the Persuall menu link and a new browser window will open. The first time you do this, Perusall will establish Perusall account and sync it with your Canvas account. If you already had a free Perusall account using your MiraCosta email address, Perusall will merge that account with the one being set up under MiraCosta’s institutional Perusall license.

Click on the Perusall course menu link in Canvas
A new window opens in your browser connecting your Canvas account with Perusall.  

Upon first launch (for anyone), they will be guided on a tour of the platform. If they ever need to restart the tour, they can click their profile icon in the top right corner. 

2: For Canvas courses organized in modules or units

If your course materials are organized for students to use Modules or units, you may want to use a test assignment to open the Perusall course.

  1. Add an Assignment, call it Test Perusall
  2. Don’t worry about points, instructions, and other settings
  3. Use External Tool – Find – Perusall
  4. Check the box to open in a new window
  5. Save
  6. In the assignment, click on the box “Load Test Perusall in New Window”

After doing this to connect your Canvas class and Perusall, you’ll follow the same process for setting up each Perusall assignment, and you can change this first Test Perusall assignment later to use it as an actual assignment.

The video below demonstrates both of the above methods for adding Perusall to your Canvas class.

Set up an assignment in the Perusall course

On the Get Started page: fill in boxes, but be sure that if you are not using groups, the number of students is set to your maximum

Library: choose the type of content for the first assignment and upload or put in URL

Assignments: click Add Assignment and select the content from your Library, choose your parameters for that assignment

Copy the name of the assignment exactly — it must be the name of your assignment in Canvas (that’s how Canvas knows which Perusall assignment to use).

Watch the video below for a demonstration of this:

Perusall settings and grading

Here is a video overview of the Perusall settings for a course:

One big settings choice for scoring or grading is this:

  1. Do you want the work graded as it is done, with student scores increasing as they go? or
  2. Do you want the work graded at the end by the instructor?

These are included in Settings, above. Each has advantages and disadvantages. Having grades go up as the student works can provide extrinsic motivation, but can also force the student to work to Perusall’s standards. Grading at the end means working quite a bit with the gradebook in Perusall, and it causes a problem with due dates. If the due date in Perusall matches the due date in Canvas (as it should so students cannot work past the due date), and the instructor grades after that date, Canvas will show the assignment as late. This will need to be explained to students, or manually changed in the Canvas gradebook.

Preventing problems with students going to the wrong assignment

There are two ways this can happen.

The student may go to Perusall.com trying to find the work

If a student gets locked out of the assignment, they may try to get in through Perusall.com, making an account. If they are successful, they will be able to annotate, but their grades will not be pushed back into Canvas, and they won’t get a score (you will see this with a red warning exclamation mark in the Perusall grades).

Solution: Encourage students to only enter Perusall through Canvas, through your assignment.

The student may navigate inside Perusall and click on the wrong assignment using the Library

Once inside Perusall, students, like instructors, can click on the left-hand list of both the Library and the Assignments. That means they can jump ahead to the wrong assignment or even in some cases jump back to an assignment that has already been graded, and work within it when you don’t want them to.

Solution: The best way to prevent this is to set the availability period for assignments, then make a hidden folder in the Library, and put all the Library items in there. Then make sure all Assignments have a due date. That way they can only click on an assignment, and only when it is open.

The video below discusses both of these potential issues:

During the class: Participating in annotating and discussing

Some instructors participate in the annotations as they occur. When participating, it’s good to use the @ symbol to alert particular students that you have a public question or annotation on their annotation. Perusall also allows students to upvote, and for you to upvote, particular annotations. The interactive nature of social annotation allows it to be a replacement for discussion if that’s how the instructor wants to use it.

Set up advance annotations if desired

You can set up questions, add video clips, or annotate your assignment yourself before the class begins as well as during the class. Instructor annotations are saved and can be rolled over to the next semester.

Grading assignments

It is usually not advisable to rely on Perusall’s automatic scoring algorithm.

Perusall’s algorithm attempts to analyze the depth and usefulness of a student’s comment, and that may not align with your goals. For example, an instructor who wants students to post five short superficial annotations or one long in-depth annotation will find that Perusall cannot make this distinction, and may give the student posting one long annotation a lower score.

Until you know the system is scoring like you want it to, it’s a good idea to check each student’s contributions. This can be done using the Students tab from the Course home page in Perusall:

view of student tab

Other options

Perusall is a complex program and can do many things. Scoring can be refined with multiple parameters. Student scores can be averaged and turned into a single Perusall grade rather than individual assignments. The recommendations above are designed for those who are new to Perusall.

Canvas Student View Warning

Canvas’ Student View button will not work with Perusall, since Canvas doesn’t send an email address to Perusall as part of that launch. To see what students will see once they launch into Perusall, utilize the Student View link on the left navigation bar within your Perusall course.

Perusall Faculty Support

Perusall Support for Your Students

Students should always launch Perusall from inside of Canvas

https://youtu.be/0wmCPeAqYjk

Studio Online Video Learning Platform

Studio Logo

Studio Flex Workshop Recordings


Studio is a video tool integrated inside of Canvas, which MiraCosta began piloting in spring 2019 when it was known as ARC. It is now available to all faculty and students indefinitely through state funding.

With Studio:

  • Faculty and students can easily record webcam and screencast video within Canvas
  • Faculty and students can create and manage a library of videos for use in Canvas (and to share outside of Canvas)
  • Faculty can create discussion activities that are based on video (discussion comments are tied to specific points in the video)
  • Faculty get data on student viewing of video
  • Faculty can add quiz questions into videos; students respond while watching the video; results go directly into the gradebook
  • Students can submit video assignments; faculty can provide feedback directly on specific moments in the video
  • Videos can be automatically captioned and the captions can be easily edited

Studio is available to faculty and students from the blue global navigation bar in MiraCosta Canvas.

Studio is also available to faculty only on the navigation menu within a MiraCosta Canvas course to RECORD or ADD video content.

Studio is also available to faculty only on the navigation menu within a Canvas course to RECORD or ADD video content.

Within the Canvas Rich Content Editor, faculty and students can select Studio from the second row of icons to add a Studio video they’ve previously recorded, or to create and use a webcam or screencast video right there.

Studio location in Canvas Rich Content Editor.

Helpful Guides

Check out an excellent website about Studio that MiraCosta associate faculty member Laura Paciorek created in summer 2020.

Studio tutorials/videos to get you started:

Browser Support for WebCams

Q. I tried using Studio but it keeps saying that it needs to access my webcam.

A. Follow the directions below for either the Chrome or Firefox browser to fix this problem.

To learn more about Studio and Canvas, view the full set of Studio tutorials.

Adding Videos Captioned in YouTube or 3CMediaSolutions to Studio

Unfortunately, videos you’ve already created in YouTube or 3CMediaSolutions will not have their captions preserved when you add them to Studio. Rather than starting captioning over again in Studio, here are some tips from Greg Beyrer of Cosumnes River College:

YouTube: Download the captions file from YouTube. The video must be set to allow community members to contribute captions. If the video already has English captions provided by the creator those cannot be downloaded, but you can tell YouTube you are contributing captions in a friendly language, say Canadian English, and then one-click copy the published captions to the new language. That could then be downloaded. YouTube does not download captions in a file that is recognized by Studio, so you have to convert those captions (.sbv file) into a Studio-friendly format (.srt file). This site does this: https://captionsconverter.com. (from YouTube Captions to Arc – Workaround Guide, where you can also find a video demonstrating the process.)

3CMediaSolutions: Simply download the (.vtt) caption file from a 3CMediaSolutions video, and then upload that file into Studio for the same video. If your video is lengthy, it may even be quicker to first upload it to 3CMediaSolutions and request the free professional captioning rather than going through the auto-caption and edit process in Studio. (from Making Arc Work with 3C Media Solutions, which includes a video demonstrating the process)

Course Evaluations in Canvas

Course evaluations are integrated within Canvas for both faculty and students. Starting in 2022, MiraCosta uses EvaluationKIT (rather than the previous system, Class Climate) to provide this function. When you have a course section that is part of your evaluation process, this page has information to help you ensure it goes smoothly.

Information to share with your students

These directions are for the SURF enrolled students within your course.

Students can access the course evaluation within Canvas, or through an email sent to them from MiraCosta’s course evaluation survey administrator. Provide the link below to your students to help them with the evaluation process in Canvas.

Students must have cookies and pop ups enabled within their browser for the course evaluation tool to work correctly.

Advise students to contact the Student Help Desk if they need assistance with course evaluations. The phone # is (760)-795-6655 or they can Chat Live with a Student Help Desk Technician.

*Note for Instructors: The Student Course Evaluations menu item will NOT work with your Faculty Canvas Sample Student account, or the Instructor’s Student View in Canvas, as those accounts are not SURF enrolled users within your course.

Information for Faculty

As an instructor, you can view your course evaluation surveys from the course navigation menu or from the To Do list within your course. It is important to have the EvaluationKIT Course menu navigation tool available in Canvas in order to show the ‘Instructor Course Evaluations’ navigation menu item. Even if this tool is available in Settings > Navigation, this tool will only show up in your course if there is a course survey associated with your course.

If you modified your course navigation menu, you may have hidden the EvaluationKIT Course menu navigation tool. If you are being evaluated, you must enable the EvaluationKIT Course menu navigation tool so that you will see the navigation menu item ‘Instructor Course Evaluations‘, and your students will see the ‘Student Course Evaluations‘ navigation menu item.

Instructor Navigation Menu

If you have not made any changes to your course navigation menu, this is the default location for the EvaluationKIT course surveys. Remember, this tool will only display if you have a course survey associated with your course. The navigation menu item is displayed as ‘Instructor Course Evaluations‘ in the instructor view.

Default location of 
Instructor Course Evaluations 
in the Canvas course navigation menu

This tool will only display if you have a course survey associated with your course.

Instructor To Do List

On the To Do list within a Canvas course, you can also view your course evaluation survey. In this area you can view the percentage of students who have responded, as well as the start and end date of your course evaluation survey.

NOTE: Courses with a 1/1/3000 date on the Course Evaluation Survey are NOT being evaluated in the current semester.

Course evaluation surveys are located here on the Canvas course To Do list with % responded and start and end dates.

NOTE: Courses with the 1/1/3000 date are NOT being surveyed this semester.

Enabling the EvaluationKIT Course Navigation Menu Tool

If you edited your Canvas course navigation menu, and your course is being evaluated, you may need to add the EvaluationKIT Course navigation tool back to your Canvas course. This is necessary so that you and your students will be able to access your course evaluations in the Canvas course navigation menu.

  1. Click on Settings. You will find this as the last option on your course navigation menu.
  2. Click the Navigation tab.
  3. Find the EvaluationKIT Course option in the bottom list of hidden navigation items.
  4. Drag EvaluationKIT Course from the bottom list to the top list of available items.
  5. Click the Save button
Steps 1-4
Step 5

Questions about Course Evaluations

For questions about student surveys and/or the Course Evaluations & Surveys system, associate faculty should contact their school’s Academic Division Administrative Assistant. Full-time faculty should contact human resources at evalsupport@miracosta.edu

If you are having a computer specific issue with a MCC computer contact the campus Employee Help Desk at (760) 795-6850 or Chat with the Employee Help Desk online.

1 2 3 4