Zoom in education

[Zammo]

I came on EduGeek because I am seeing something different. We have so many schools using the Zoom platform especially for parent evenings, break out rooms, webinars, governors meeting etc. I am looking to offer whatever support I can.

 

Thanks.

 

Fair enough! We are a very heavily tied to G Suite so perhaps I am blinkered in some respects

[dhicks]

Something I have been wondering: how does the background selection / blur algorithm work? I use Zoom outside of a school context, from what I've seen of people using replacement backgrounds the effect can be a bit variable, with the occasional arm or head dissapearing into the background. Are there limits on how much computing power you can use locally that limit what you can do with processing the background out of images?

 

Possibly related to the above, do you have any idea on battery performance over other video solutions? Say on a laptop not connected to the mains, what sort of runtime I might expect?

 

Does Zoom have / plan for support for 360 degree cameras? More the lower-end of things, like the new GoPro, rather than the more expensive "pro" devices.

 

The context I'm thinking of is more like streaming performances and similar, where we might want to put a device as near to a stage as we can, in an audience-eye-view position, without having to have power cables and so forth run accross the floor. 360 degree, or at least wide-angle, support would be good for users (or possibly a producer) being able to select a field-of-view of a performance or track someone walking accross a stage.

[mikeprice]

I'm not really sure of the applicability of Zoom backgrounds to a professional meeting/discussion/conference

 

seem like a proper library (if you are in politics) or blank wall is more sensible

 

I can see some groups suffering from background envy leading to unhealthy competition

 

 

maybe just me - grumpy old git who has never used Zoom

[DJ-1701]

To be fair, I think what a lot of us need is a reason to trust Zoom. Some of us don't use you due to all the data protection worries, some of us have been over ruled and still have grave concerns, a lot of us are still concerned with a lot of issues which Zoom was purported to have at the very beginning... including insecure handling of data and storage of details in China or other non EU data centres.

 

I am happy to answer any questions you have about Zoom in education

 

Happy to address any security questions? I simply want to help as I know so many schools are using the Zoom platform. I will try to come on here as often as possible. thanks

 

Well, I thought you could extrapolate a couple of questions there from my original post, but I guess not...

 

1. Why is Zoom secure enough that we should trust it today given it's very rocky beginning?

2. Are you still handling any data insecurely, and if so, what data?

3. Are you storing any data in non-EU data centres, if so, what data?

[PaulZoom]

1. https://zoom.us/docs/doc/Zoom-Security-White-Paper.pdf

2. Unsure what this is referring to.

3. Account owners and admins on paid accounts can customize which data center regions they use for hosting their real-time meeting and webinar traffic. You can opt in or out of each specific data center region for data in transit. Your default region, which is the region where your account was provisioned, will be locked.

[synaesthesia]

3. Account owners and admins on paid accounts can customize which data center regions they use for hosting their real-time meeting and webinar traffic. You can opt in or out of each specific data center region for data in transit. Your default region, which is the region where your account was provisioned, will be locked.

 

So to confirm, free accounts are region locked to wherever they sign up from - i.e. data from accounts created in the EU is all stored in the EU and doesn't go elsewhere?

[elsiegee40]

1.

3. Account owners and admins on paid accounts can customize which data center regions they use for hosting their real-time meeting and webinar traffic. You can opt in or out of each specific data center region for data in transit. Your default region, which is the region where your account was provisioned, will be locked.

 

3a. So, does this mean that free account data may not be stored within the EU for those of us with GDPR to think of in the UK/EU? Please say if this differs between personal and school accounts.

 

3b. UK/EU Schools can currently have a free offering. Is all this data held within the EU despite the accounts being free?

 

3c. When the covid crisis ends and you start charging schools again, will you guarantee that schools choosing not to take up the paid option will have their data remain under GDPR jurisdiction?

[dhicks]

I'm not really sure of the applicability of Zoom backgrounds to a professional meeting/discussion/conference

 

I was thinking more in the context of filming live performances and wanting to do chromakey-like background removal / replacement. The "background blur" feature for Meet is being touted as a handy privacy feature, though, which I imagine is pretty much the same feature (figure out which bit of the image is the background, blur it). It's a good point in a use-in-classes context, though - allowing background blur might be okay, but a teacher of a class should be able to block pupils setting their own custom background.

 

Paul-from-Zoom: is there any support for multiple camera angles on one outgoing stream? If we want to film a live performance (I'm starting to plan ahead for Christmas nativity plays and similar), can we have multiple fixed cameras set up that we can switch between with a handy interface?

[DJ-1701]

Well, I thought you could extrapolate a couple of questions there from my original post, but I guess not...

 

1. Why is Zoom secure enough that we should trust it today given it's very rocky beginning?

2. Are you still handling any data insecurely, and if so, what data?

3. Are you storing any data in non-EU data centres, if so, what data?

 

1. https://zoom.us/docs/doc/Zoom-Security-White-Paper.pdf

2. Unsure what this is referring to.

3. Account owners and admins on paid accounts can customize which data center regions they use for hosting their real-time meeting and webinar traffic. You can opt in or out of each specific data center region for data in transit. Your default region, which is the region where your account was provisioned, will be locked.

 

Thank you for that, as for question 2, 2 is referring to data that is not handed securely by the product, for example:

 

Sending device data to Facebook.

Personal information being used to target ads.

User information reported by some being leaked because of an issue with how Zoom groups contacts.

The old 'End to End Encryption' line that Zoom admitted was a mistake.

 

Some, or hopefully all may have been explained or fixed, but of course we are going to hear the horror stories and not the fixes more due to how media works.

 

Interesting, the use of 'data center' and 'K 12' in your posts are purely US spelling and phrases, just wondering are you UK based or external supporting the UK? If the latter, I know we have different laws that might understandably complicate matters to responses... which will only get more confusing beginning 2021.

Edited October 14, 2020 by DJ-1701

[PaulZoom]

Free accounts will be locked to the default region where their account is provisioned.

[DJ-1701]

Free accounts will be locked to the default region where their account is provisioned.

 

What does that mean? That we can't login in the US, or that all data will go through 'region' data centres? What does Zoom consider a region?

[PaulZoom]

Please note i lead Uk schools and located in the UK. Coming on edugeek was to see what help is required generally as we plan a head. Thanks

[PaulZoom]

Thank you for that, as for question 2, 2 is referring to data that is not handed securely by the product, for example:

 

Sending device data to Facebook.

Personal information being used to target ads.

User information reported by some being leaked because of an issue with how Zoom groups contacts.

The old 'End to End Encryption' line that Zoom admitted was a mistake.

 

Some, or hopefully all may have been explained or fixed, but of course we are going to hear the horror stories and not the fixes more due to how media works.

 

Interesting, the use of 'data center' and 'K 12' in your posts are purely US spelling and phrases, just wondering are you UK based or external supporting the UK? If the latter, I know we have different laws that might understandably complicate matters to responses... which will only get more confusing beginning 2021.

I am based in the UK.

[PaulZoom]

What does that mean? That we can't login in the US, or that all data will go through 'region' data centres? What does Zoom consider a region?

 

12 regions - Uk is one region so data centre if located in UK

[elsiegee40]

I am based in the UK.

 

Paul I sense your frustration, but I don’t think you’re helping yourself here.

 

You keep saying that you are happy to answer questions, but you aren’t giving detail on the questions you are asked. It may be obvious to you, but it isn’t to those asking the questions. School IT staff, who are the majority in this forum, need the detail in order to understand the impact of anything new on their network and on their responsibilities under Safeguarding and Data Protection law.

 

At the moment, I personally am seeing a politician’s answers. You appear to be answering what you want to answer rather than going into the detail of what was asked.

 

It would also be helpful if you couched your answers in UK language. K-12 is American. UK schools don’t use that language. If a vendor or supplier isn’t talking the language of the country it’s attempting to market to then it will be regarded with suspicion that it doesn’t grasp the framework under which that country’s schools are legally required to operate.

Edited October 14, 2020 by elsiegee40

[DrCheese]

Please note i lead Uk schools and located in the UK. Coming on edugeek was to see what help is required generally as we plan a head. Thanks

 

Learning how to write would go along way towards appearing less of a two bit operation. Writing more than just copy/paste answers (You've not even removed the formatting...) would also help.

[mikeprice]

12 regions - Uk is one region so data centre if located in UK

 

So - in specific terms - ALL data from schools in the UK is stored in the UK

 

correct??

 

and - only in the UK

 

correct??

 

thanks

[PaulZoom]

A 2nd camera as your content stream: https://support.zoom.us/hc/en-us/articles/201362153-Sharing-your-screen-content-or-second-camera

In zoom room: https://support.zoom.us/hc/en-us/articles/360041293772-Screen-Sharing-a-camera-from-a-Zoom-Room

Use a virtual camera app, which can stream multiple cameras as a single camera source: https://support.zoom.us/hc/en-us/articles/360044801671-Supported-virtual-cameras-for-macOS

https://www.ecamm.com/mac/ecammlive/

Edited October 14, 2020 by PaulZoom

[dhicks]

A 2nd camera as your content stream: https://support.zoom.us/hc/en-us/articles/201362153-Sharing-your-screen-content-or-second-camera

In zoom room: https://support.zoom.us/hc/en-us/articles/360041293772-Screen-Sharing-a-camera-from-a-Zoom-Room

Use a virtual camera app, which can stream multiple cameras as a single camera source: https://support.zoom.us/hc/en-us/articles/360044801671-Supported-virtual-cameras-for-macOS

https://www.ecamm.com/mac/ecammlive/

 

If this was an answer to my question about using multiple cameras, then I think your answer implies that I could use two (or more?) USB-connected cameras, but switching between network-connected cameras requires external application support. Fair enough, it makes sense for your platform to just do the streaming video side of things. I'm guessing that means you don't have any direct support for 360-degree video?

[Ditto]

I'd really like to see this go in a different direction, but I fear it won't. I'm even wondering whether we need to conduct a Turing Test.

[dhicks]

I'm sure schools will use zoom from time to time, but if it doesn't integrate with the other services in play its hard to see how it will become a major player.

 

Indeed. I would very much like there to be an alternative (or more than one!) to the two current main systems of Microsoft and Google. Not that I have any particular concerns about either, but a good, diverse marketplace is always good - the goverment funding recently put aside to help get schools set up with an online learning system basically boiled down to "pick your provider, Google or Microsoft".

 

The individual components of such a system are available, it's just the integrations part of things that needs sorting. A school should be able to pick between some combination of {MIS} / {Apple / Wonde / Clever / Other Identity Provider} / {DropBox / Other Cloud Filesystem} / {ClassDojo / Hosted Moodle Provider / Other VLE} / {Zoom / Other Video Provider} / {etc} and have everything work together.

 

Paul-From-Zoom: If I were to be looking at integrating video confercing into an education-related application, what facilities / APIs do you offer for integration? For instance, if I had a Virtual Learning Environment (VLE - like Moodle, etc), and I wanted to automatically link each course to a video chat room, how do I do that?

[Rob_D]

Hi PaulZoom,

 

At the moment we're using the Free education account (without the 40 minute restriction). Are there any current plans re-impose the restrictions on these accounts in the near/medium future.

The second camera thing looks interesting. When dhicks mentioned it my first thought was visualizers. Is this available on the free accounts?

 

Thanks!

[elsiegee40]

@PaulZoom This is a technical forum and if you aren’t technical then admitting you don’t know, but will find out from someone who does and get back to us is an acceptable answer.

[PaulZoom]

https://support.zoom.us/hc/en-us/articles/115005550546-Using-the-Microsoft-Teams-Integration

https://support.zoom.us/hc/en-us/articles/360020187492-Zoom-for-GSuite-add-on

https://moodle.org/plugins/mod_zoom

https://support.zoom.us/hc/en-us/articles/115005486363-Getting-Started-with-Integrations

[dhicks]

If you're replying to a specific question, it'd be handy if you could quote at least part of the question just so people can keep a track of what you're talking about - there's several different threads going on here in one go, it can get a little confusing.

 

Paul-From-Zoom: If I were to be looking at integrating video confercing into an education-related application, what facilities / APIs do you offer for integration? For instance, if I had a Virtual Learning Environment (VLE - like Moodle, etc), and I wanted to automatically link each course to a video chat room, how do I do that?

 

https://support.zoom.us/hc/en-us/articles/115005550546-Using-the-Microsoft-Teams-Integration

https://support.zoom.us/hc/en-us/articles/360020187492-Zoom-for-GSuite-add-on

https://moodle.org/plugins/mod_zoom

https://support.zoom.us/hc/en-us/articles/115005486363-Getting-Started-with-Integrations

 

Is this something you can explain further? I can get general information on Zoom from a Google search - Zoom's documentation seems seems pretty comprehensive and well laid-out, so any questions I do have I can probably start to answer via search. It'd be good to know there was someone at Zoom that integrators and so on could turn to if / when they hit issues. In fairness, it's hardly as though Google or Microsoft are on here trying to answer questions, so kudos to Zoom for putting someone on the job.