Zoom: Join By App

Hello, my name is Ricky Enger, and today we're going to join a Zoom meeting using an app on our smartphone. So we'll use our app to get connected, and then we'll go through a couple of really important things we need to know about for a typical Zoom meeting.

This workshop will be helpful if you're checking out the screen visually or if you're using a screen reader to speak the text like I am. In fact, you'll hear the screen reader speak up from time to time as we do things. The concepts we'll learn today will apply whether we're using an app on an Apple device, like an iPhone or an iPad, or an Android phone, like a Google Pixel or a Samsung Galaxy phone. If you want to learn about joining a Zoom meeting by dialing in or from a computer, check out the other workshops in our Zoom series to get up to speed.

Okay, so before we can connect to a Zoom meeting using an app, we'll need to make sure our app is installed. We're not going to walk through that part of the process together, but you can check out the Apple App Store or the Google Play Store and search for Zoom Cloud. Using those keywords in your search will bring up the Zoom app for you to download and install on your device. Great, so we're all set with our app.

Now what? Well, let's open our email that contains the information about the meeting we're going to attend, and now let's look for a Zoom link. It's going to be down a few lines from the top of our email, because first we've got the name of the person inviting us, the meeting topic, and then the meeting time. Below all that, we'll find our link, and it's blue with an underline, so if we're looking for it visually, it'll stand out a little. Also, it starts with http://, followed by a bit more information.

Screen Reader: Https//us02web.zoom.us/j/89-

Ricky: Yup, there it is. So let's open it. We'll tap it, or if you're using a screen reader like I am, that'll be a double tap.

Screen Reader: Waiting, Zoom. Audio, alert, to hear others, please join audio.

Ricky: Okay, we're almost there. The Zoom app is open on our phone, and now we just need to get connected so we can hear and participate. We have three buttons here, in kind of a column going down our screen. The top one, which is the one we want, is Call using Internet Audio.

The button below that is Dial in, but we're not going to use that one. The reason for that is because our internet audio actually has higher quality sound, and since we're using our app instead of calling in, we might as well take advantage of that better sound, right? The very bottom button here is Cancel, and we'd use that button to not join audio at all. All right, so let's get connected to audio by selecting this top button.

Screen Reader: Call using Internet Audio, button. You are using, displaying Ricky Enger's avatar.

Ricky: Yay, we made it. Okay, now that we're in, let's talk about a couple of important things that will be really useful in Zoom meetings. First, let's talk about muting and unmuting. We all have background noise sometimes, right? The dog starts barking, or the TV is on, or we just need to say something to another person in the house. So being able to keep that stuff from being heard by everyone else in the meeting is really helpful.

Now, every person who hosts a Zoom meeting might approach this differently. Some hosts will make sure everyone is muted when they come into the room, and some will start with everyone unmuted. So to figure out what our mute status is, let's find our button for muting and unmuting. It's going to be in the very bottom left of our screen. The icon for it is a microphone, which makes sense, right? If we're not muted, the text on our button will say Mute my audio. So let's go ahead and do that by selecting this button, and we'll see what happens.

Screen Reader: Unmute my audio button.

Ricky: And there we go, we're muted now. Our text has changed to say Unmute my audio. Our icon has changed as well, because our microphone now has a little line through it to show that it's not on, perfect.

Now, in some meetings, it's kind of informal, and we can unmute ourselves and speak up whenever we want, but for many meetings, there are lots of people in the room, and our host needs to keep things organized and moving along smoothly. So in this case, it's really great to notify our host that we have something to say, and then our host can slot us in for a turn to speak. So how do we do that? Well, it's kind of like being in a classroom. We'll raise our hand to let the host know we've got something to say.

To do that, we've got to open a menu with some extra options in it. We'll check out the very bottom right-hand corner of our screen, and there's a button that says More, and the icon has three little dots.

Screen Reader: More button.

Ricky: Okay, great. So let's select this button.

Screen Reader: Chat button.

Ricky: Great, we're in our menu now with a few different options. The top one is Chat, and we've got more options in a little column here. The one we're looking for is closer to the bottom of the column. The text on our button says Raise Hand.

Screen Reader: Raise Hand button.

Ricky: So we'll select that.

Screen Reader: Hand now raised, More button.

Ricky: Okay, great. Our hand is now raised, and our little menu automatically closes, nice. Now the host will see that we have something to say, and at some point, the host will call on us to speak, and we'll either be unmuted by the host, or the host will ask us to unmute. So just be ready for that unmute button at the bottom left corner of the screen if the host asks us to unmute.

Now, if for some reason we change our mind, or maybe our question gets answered before we get called on, we can lower our hand. We do have to go back into our little menu though, since it closed. So we'll find our More button in the bottom right-hand corner of our screen.

Screen Reader: More button.

Ricky: We'll select that.

Screen Reader: Chat button.

Ricky: And now let's find our button towards the bottom of the screen. Since our hand is raised, our text now says Lower Hand.

Screen Reader: Lower Hand button.

Ricky: We'll select that.

Screen Reader: Hand now lowered, More button.

Ricky: And there we go. Our hand is now lowered, and our menu is closed again. Now, all good things must come to an end, and at some point, our Zoom meeting will be over. When we're ready to leave the meeting, we can do that by selecting the Leave button, and that's going to be at the very top right of our screen.

Screen Reader: Leave button.

Ricky: Yup, there it is. So we'll select that.

Screen Reader: Starred items button.

Ricky: And we're out. That really was a great meeting, wasn't it? I'm Ricky Enger, and I'd like to thank you for joining me to learn about using the Zoom app to get connected to a Zoom meeting. See you next time.