Zoom and Miro: best practices to combine these tools

  • 24 March 2020
  • 36 replies
  • 21776 views
M
Userlevel 2

Hello!  I am so happy to see this group support.  There is so much information currently available that I am having difficulty navigating through it all.  I would like to use Miro Boards for small group work in Zoom breakout rooms during synchronous classes and am not sure if this even possible, if not, I may just assign small groups in Canvas for them to use the Miro board to brainstorm.  Has anyone used Miro with Zoom? 

I would also be interested in any other ways people are using this tool in higher education.

Robert Johnson 2 years ago

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36 replies

mlanders
Userlevel 7
Badge +9

Hi Cindy,

 

there is a 3.rd Scenario:

It needs (for 25 people):

  • 1 miro (main) board prepared for the whole class
  • 5 prepared miro boards for the group with each special task for them
  • Invitation via mail to the miro (main) board
  • Each of the 5 miro boards should be mentioned on a different “task frame” in the main miro board - the links for the miro boards should be either on the task frame or could give them in the chat window of miro
  • In each of the 5 miro groups ther should be a “result frame”
  • Set the timer for the groups in the main board
  • Send each group to there board
  • Copy the result frame from each group and paste it into the main group.
  • Present the results of each group in the main group.

I added a picture how this works in miro:

Michael

Using C o l l a b o a r d
X
Userlevel 2

Hi, glad to see you proposed such a nice question!

Currently, I am a Master student in Hong Kong. One of the professors uses M**al+Zoom to organize breakout room activity. However, I prefer the functions in Miro. The following steps may help you to organize breakout room activity using Miro:

Before the lesson:

  1. Create Miro templates for each group;
  2. Ask students to join in the thread (normally via emails, don’t forget to ask them to create an account);
  3. The teacher should be invited by each group, then you can join the collaborative work in the class;

In-class:

  1. Set breakout rooms;
  2. Ask each group to work on the same thread;
  3. Use ‘share screen’ function in Zoom to let students share their work.

Hope it helps! Best wishes.

 

Xinyi Liang Cindy

Max Harper
Userlevel 7
Badge +5

@meloffbird

For people new to Miro I’ve found it useful to follow a ‘field trip’ or “off-site” metaphor.  What I mean by this is: people are familiar with zoom (this is location A: like a team showing up to a big meeting at their office). And the addition of a new platform with a new interface can be disorienting for some (like finding parking and the right entrance and floor of some offsite office, conference space or other location. They show up late or miss the orientation.) 

-> for this reason I like to demo, from zoom screenshare, the basic use and interface of Miro as well as any portions of MIro board they may later be asked to navigate on their own— I demo this Miro usage from a screen share in zoom and then paste in the link (into Zoom chat) to the first onboarding Miro board - specifically the welcome/onboarding frame. (Note - if you use “incognito mode” in Chrome for example, you can load the Miro board frame link as if you are an ’anonymous editor’ -what they will be- and the view you demonstrate will more accurately reflect their UI/UX - e.g. Miro gives absolute first time users some pop up help windows that you will likely encourage them to close outright if you intend to conduct their Miro onboarding. 
 

Things covered in the on-boarding: I’ve found this order of priority to be most helpful  

-The window/screen management of setting up side by side windows so they can have view of 1) Miro 2) zoom in gallery mode to see their collaborators 3) zoom chat. (The ability to go back to zoom chat quickly is a lifeline for any stragglers who need to reach back out about Miro interface issues) 

-Navigation: intuitive understanding of “the board canvas” (moving the canvas moves you to a new vantage point - it moves everything on top of it… sits like moving to a new part of the table”- surprisingly some new-to-Miro people get flustered by this.   Zoom(scroll-based and mini-map), hand(pan), arrow moving of objects.  (People need navigation before object creation in my opinion. Otherwise it feels like playing on boats without learning to swim- fun at first but ultimately risky.)  I like to give a gently-paced, full tour preview, of any large, multi-frame boards: like standing a zoo tour group in front of a map of the zoo and pointing out our path for the day, and where the lions are. 

-Object creation → editing created objects → now get social → have fun with it → try other tools. 
 

Double check along the way that you’re getting the participation you hoped for. Learning new tools is a place that can quickly separate the quietly reserved and less-rapid-tech-adopting from the more rapid. In a big group training some people won’t feel comfortable saying they ‘ just didn’t understand how to make a sticky note.’ They’ll wait until the group exercises to bring it up and while they’ll probably be cross-taught at that point… it’s not a comfortable feeling for anyone to go through that, it distracts from the activity and worst of all, in my opinion, it opens an opportunity for the group to turn negative on Miro as a group, and doubt you and others who have thrust this uncomfortable and unproductive tool into their busy work lives. Getting everyone comfortable with absolute basics helps mitigate the momentum of this potential critique.

 

good luck 🙂 and enjoy. 

Think visually. Work brilliantly. || visualthinking.tools || Creators of 'PowerPack', 'Clusterizer' and 'Totally Random' Miro Apps: || max@refractivestrategy.com || Support Community Miro Plug-In Creation: https://www.buymeacoffee.com/refractive
Kiron Bondale
Userlevel 7
Badge +6

One thing I can add to this thread is that while you can certainly jump in and out of Zoom breakout meeting rooms to see how your learners are doing, this can be disruptive to the flow of their discussions. A different way once you trust that they are gainfully working through a shared problem is to just watch their individual group Miro boards for updates and they can always use the Zoom “call for help” feature if they need your help.

Kiron

Kiron D. Bondale, PMP, PMI-ACP, PSM II, ICP-ACC, DASSM, DAC, DAVSC, PMI-RMP
D
Userlevel 1

Hello!  I am so happy to see this group support.  There is so much information currently available that I am having difficulty navigating through it all.  I would like to use Miro Boards for small group work in Zoom breakout rooms during synchronous classes and am not sure if this even possible, if not, I may just assign small groups in Canvas for them to use the Miro board to brainstorm.  Has anyone used Miro with Zoom? 

I would also be interested in any other ways people are using this tool in higher education.

Hi everyone! 

Totally agree with this request. 

The same topic, the same purpose. 

Please help if you know the solution! 

X
Userlevel 2

Hello Cindy! 

Thank you for sharing your experience. 

Id like to ask you an additional question if you don’t mind. 

I’m not sure that I got the idea of using the «share screen function” in Zoom

as I understand when some people are invited to see and work in Miro they already can see the process of correcting the board in real time, can’t they? 

So why I should tell them to share the screen if they already have this option in Miro? 

Thanks.  

 

Hi dear,

Thanks for raising your question. Let me explain so:

Scenario 1:

25 students in a classroom; 5 groups; group work; share group work with the whole classroom.

ICT used:

  1. Zoom: Teacher lecture for the whole class;
  2. Zoom: Set breakout rooms for each group discussion; 
  3. Miro: Each breakout room works on a Miro canvas;
  4. Zoom: back to the Zoom and present group work to the whole classroom (using share screen in Zoom)

 

Scenario 2:

25 students in a classroom and work on 1 discussion together (e.g. brainstorming)

ICT used:

  1. Organise the whole-class collaborative work using Miro
  2. Share screen + video conferencing using Miro 

 

Hope it helps!

mlanders
Userlevel 7
Badge +9

Hi @Brian Kupersmit ,

I think it won’t take long till we’ve got a complete solution:

https://miro.com/workshops/

If you scroll down you’ll find this:

Can’t wait to see and feel how it works … and hopefully we can get a faster login for our invited clients.

Michael

Using C o l l a b o a r d
Jack Thompson

I realize I’m late to this thread but our team at Yahoo has been using Circles for Zoom and when we collaborate with Miro it has been really helpful. Circles removes the big zoom window and turns everyone into little circles on your screen so it makes it perfect for collaborating. Hope others find this helpful too!

X
Userlevel 2

Hello,

yes in the free plan there are limitations.
But as i discovered miro i worked serveral days with the free version.
It offers a real huge possibilities to work.
I remember i set my most favorate things into one board and worked with the other two boards and copied my most used frames always from board one to one of the others … 

It works but it costs time.

Now i prefer to work with templates it saves time and gives me everthing i need with a click of a mouse. And i can create elements i use very often ...

If you are students just try to check out if you / your school/university gets into the Education Plan:

https://help.miro.com/hc/en-us/articles/360017730473-Education-Plan 

This should help you a lot.

Best regards
Michael

Thank you, Michael. I’ve already sent a request applying for an education plan. Thanks for forwarding the information to me. It really helps!

Currently, I am doing a MITE program (i.e. information technology in education). As I’ve learned and explored how IT can help learning and teaching, I find it more interesting. I see it very crucial to use e-learning tools to facilitate learning, especially during the period like today. 

I am exploring the functions in Miro because I would like to write a proposal for our teaching team to see if some of them would like to try Miro as a collaborative platform for MITE students.

Besides using Google Docs, I believe Miro can bring us to more innovative learning.

Cindy

mlanders
Userlevel 7
Badge +9

Hi Kiron,

thats a good point.

Till now I never used zoom with its breakout meeting rooms - but I have seen serveral videos where zoom users tell the same like you did.

I will give it a try if I’m going to work with larger groups.

Thank you for sharing :thumbsup::thumbsup:

Michael

Using C o l l a b o a r d
R

Hi,

Has there been any progress on the Zoom/Miro integration?

Thanks,

Ryan

Robert Johnson
Userlevel 7
Badge +12

The wait is over → https://community.miro.com/changelog-feedback-31/new-announcing-the-miro-app-for-zoom-5389

Visual Thinker | Volunteer Community Moderator
M

Following up on this thread. I am planning on hosting a workshop/focus group and am not sure if it is best to share my screen during the presentation (as I have some boards that explain the activities) or just use Zoom for audio and ask that the participants use the full screen to view the Miro board? 

D
Userlevel 1

Hello Cindy! 

Thank you for sharing your experience. 

Id like to ask you an additional question if you don’t mind. 

I’m not sure that I got the idea of using the «share screen function” in Zoom

as I understand when some people are invited to see and work in Miro they already can see the process of correcting the board in real time, can’t they? 

So why I should tell them to share the screen if they already have this option in Miro? 

Thanks.  

 

D
Userlevel 1

Thank you very much, Michael!

 

 

X
Userlevel 2

Thank you for your answer! 

Just one more question:

in Miro there are two types of plans: free one and paid ones. 

With free plan I can share 3 board with unlimited number of people. 

With paid ones I can use unlimited boards but the number of people I can share the board with is limited. 

What is your take about what kind of plan is most useful and convenient for a teacher considering that students after several sessions finish there education process and new ones come? 

Thanks! 

Hi Dear,

Sorry that I may not able to answer this question because I’ve checked detailed information about the paid plan. But I do doubt why there’s a limited number of people in a paid plan. Or you may just ask the Miro team. I think they’d love to receive feedback from users.

Best wishes,

Cindy

X
Userlevel 2

Hi Cindy,

 

there is a 3.rd Scenario:

It needs (for 25 people):

  • 1 miro (main) board prepared for the whole class
  • 5 prepared miro boards for the group with each special task for them
  • Invitation via mail to the miro (main) board
  • Each of the 5 miro boards should be mentioned on a different “task frame” in the main miro board - the links for the miro boards should be either on the task frame or could give them in the chat window of miro
  • In each of the 5 miro groups ther should be a “result frame”
  • Set the timer for the groups in the main board
  • Send each group to there board
  • Copy the result frame from each group and paste it into the main group.
  • Present the results of each group in the main group.

I added a picture how this works in miro:

Michael

Thanks for your ideas, Michael. I think it is very helpful! However, may I ask if you upgraded your plan? Because when I am exploring Miro, I found there are new features they are introducing, like sticky note captures and video conferencing. But I am currently a student and I don’t think I should pay for it because of not many collaborative works currently. 

Would you please share more innovative features with me?

Thanks a lot!

Cindy

A

I hope that the integration comes soon because I spent a lot of time today trying to make it work and am not sure that it is possible because on Miro site it says coming soon. From all the other literature I read I believed that it was already possible through Zapier. Not sure what’s going on.

If anyone can assist that would be great.

Anastasis

its.eric
Userlevel 1
Badge

Hi all,

Like to chip in here to see if it can help anyone.

If you’d like to use Miro with a whole group or in breakout, take a look at our platform called Toasty (https://toasty.ai/). We integrate with Miro and you can have everyone use it together in the main room or when everyone is in breakout - they always have access to the board and is only 1 click away.

Moving people from one breakout room to another breakout room won’t disconnect them as well. And you don’t need to screen share.

I hope this helps - and if you have any feedback, very happy to hear :)

 

Kevon

Co-founder & CEO of Toasty

Hello,

 

I have just tried using Toasty - which did indeed seem like an answer to our prayers - and have just left the following message at the "live chat". Pity. ;-/

"Hello, I just wanted to let you know that, although I was initially very excited about your product, based on the "academy" videos, i found it definitely not ready for prime time... Buggy in almost every single feature I tried. Starting with something as simple as editing a session: every time i click on it, a "new" host appears (all me); trying to get to google drive kept giving me an "feature not available" error message; the session itself reverts to blank every time I leave it, losing all the planning; and finally, my attempt to chat with somebody led me here, where I get the information that you`ll be back online "later today", whenever that is. Toasty seems like an incredible idea, but it is definitely still in beta, and should be made available as such. Customer trust is a hard thing to get back, and it's my opinion that you are very much risking losing it with everyone that tests it as a finished product. "


It did look interesting. Bummer.

 

Hey everyone, this one is all my fault. 

I’m VERY SORRY to have caused this last year.

5 months ago, I was still new at my role and grossly underestimated the time (4+ weeks dedicated expertise), capital (for underlying infrastructure), and skill/effort (engineering/operations) to provide a stable video meeting product.

Last year, I was also inexperienced with customer support and did not dedicated time to watch for the live chat. 

We’ve changed quite a bit since then:

  • [Nov 2020] - I became CEO of Toasty, after raising a round to further fuel our growth
  • [Nov 2020] - We hired a customer success champion, who has helped with our growth, emails, videos, and is dedicated now on watching the chatbot for any questions. Also, every single email sent to support@toasty.ai (our main way to provide support), goes to my personal work email - I read everything.
  • [Dec 2020] - we re-did our entire infrastructure from scratch. “Toasty Turbo”, was launched in 3 locations (US, Germany and Singapore), along with a sophisticated way to make sessions seem “local” even to participants physically far away. We wrote more about the change here: https://blog.toasty.ai/superior-experience-for-virtual-events-and-large-audiences/
  • [Dec 2020] - we also wrote about our security and privacy as many of our users are curious how we stack up vs Zoom. You can see the post here: https://blog.toasty.ai/comparing-toasty-zoom-security/
  • [Jan 2020] - we launched new pricing, including a perpetual free tier, we’ve also increased what you get at two plans: Plus and Premium. You can see our pricing tiers here: https://toasty.ai/pricing
  • [Jan 2020 - Present] - we’re working extremely hard to push product forward to provide even better ways to interact.
  • Customers like Instacart, VIPKID, Stanford University, Government consultants, and thousands of professional facilitators tell us we have something special. One interview we’ve done lately can be found here: https://blog.toasty.ai/shani-herrmann-interview/
  • Fresh out of the oven, we just published how Toasty loves Miro - the top 3 things we enjoy most about Miro: https://blog.toasty.ai/how-toasty-loves-miro/

 

Looking back when I became CEO, the first thing I did was to write out our company mission: to build meaningful connections between people. The methods, software, people, processes, may change. But this mission is not ever going to change.


Feedback on our product - especially how we can make the integration with Miro better, are needed. Please write to let me know.

 

Eric
CEO of Toasty (previously CTO & Head of Product)

Follow me on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tsangeric/

 

Find us at https://Toasty.ai
J

I have been using Miro and Zoom quite successfully for the past year (teaching a bunch of different university classes).   I use breakout rooms -- and during the breakout room time, each room is working within a small chunk of a Miro board.  So, if a student is in BreakoutRoom3, they go to the shared miro board and look for the zone (a big square) labelled “Breakout Room 3”.  They collaborate/work with their team “on” (in?) that square.  They discuss, create, etc (say for 15 mins) then everyone comes back together and I ask each room to walk us through what they did/found.

You can see this -- and lots of other random ideas/tips in this board I made (below).     

 

Isman Tanuri
Userlevel 7
Badge +4

Hello @Marla, if you’re still looking for ideas on how to use Miro and Zoom together, you can check out this interactive webinar that I ran. My training and workshop sessions are similar to this. Everything happens in Miro, no screensharing and participants interact with the content, other participants and the facilitator all the time.

 

Check out our official Miro Experts profile: https://miro.com/experts/elisan-partners/
M

Thanks very much Isman:). I’ll have a look over the coming weeks. 👍 I appreciate you sending me your training video. I may have some Q’s for you when I eventually get round to watching it. Would you mind if I reached out to you closer to the time? 🙏

D
Userlevel 1

Thank you for your answer! 

Just one more question:

in Miro there are two types of plans: free one and paid ones. 

With free plan I can share 3 board with unlimited number of people. 

With paid ones I can use unlimited boards but the number of people I can share the board with is limited. 

What is your take about what kind of plan is most useful and convenient for a teacher considering that students after several sessions finish there education process and new ones come? 

Thanks! 

K

Hi all,

Like to chip in here to see if it can help anyone.

If you’d like to use Miro with a whole group or in breakout, take a look at our platform called Toasty (https://toasty.ai/). We integrate with Miro and you can have everyone use it together in the main room or when everyone is in breakout - they always have access to the board and is only 1 click away.

Moving people from one breakout room to another breakout room won’t disconnect them as well. And you don’t need to screen share.

I hope this helps - and if you have any feedback, very happy to hear :)

 

Kevon

Co-founder & CEO of Toasty

M

Hi all-I was thrilled to see this thread:). I am likely to fall under Scenario 2 above:

Scenario 2:

25 students in a classroom and work on 1 discussion together (e.g. brainstorming)

I will be running an on-line workshop (with 6-8 participants)-most likely using Zoom-and I can’t quite understand how I would then incorporate Miro into this process, i.e., if I’m the “trainer”-and I switch over to Miro (in a new tab)-do my participants see my screen/Miro diagram? I’m not understanding how I can have my Zoom meeting/workshop “open” and then how Miro fits into all of this? Can somebody please clarify this in very easy to understand language:). Many thanks!

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