Zoom and Miro: best practices to combine these tools

  • 24 March 2020
  • 36 replies
  • 21748 views

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

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! 

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

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.  

 

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!

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! 

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

Userlevel 1

Thank you very much, Michael!

 

 

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

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

Userlevel 7
Badge +9

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

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

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

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

I think someone mentions it above, but I am concerned about doing a zoom for breakouts and having a Miro board and having it be a bit clunky going back and forth between the applications.  Has anyone had success with the combination and if so, how?

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

Hi,

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

Thanks,

Ryan

Hi,

I think integrating is the way to go because being logged into two separate accounts is cumbersome and clunky.

I have been trying all day to integrate Miro and Zoom by using Zapier without success. I upgraded to a Pro Zoom but still can’t get it to work. It looked like it worked for a minute but I could never get the Miro function back when in Zoom.

Very frustrating and these companies have poor support, well I haven’t heard back from anyone yet.

If anyone has managed to make this work I’d love to hear how you did it.

Anastasis

 

 

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

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

Userlevel 7
Badge +5

Zoom Transcript to Miro Layout

 

Made a full post today over here about a Zoom Transcript to layout plugin prototype I’m working on…  thought I’d semi-repost over here. 

 

It takes a zoom meeting transcript and lays it out into a commenter-by-commenter swimlane-ish flow of their sequential comments on stickies. 

 

Here’s a little demo video walk-through of where I was able to nudge the prototype to this week.

 

 

 

Interested to learn where we the people of Miro might want to take a prototype like this ...

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. "

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!

Userlevel 4
Badge +1

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.

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? 

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. 

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