What Our Teachers Do to Make Zoom More Secure
There has been a lot of news lately about “Zoom bombing”– a practice of bored teenagers and malicious Internet users entering Zoom video conference classroom meetings and disrupting lessons by sharing offensive or potentially dangerous content. Some teachers and parents have reached out to us with concerns about this possibility since Zoom is the tool teachers have been trained to use for live connections during the pandemic. The intent of this communication is help community members understand what the Oconto Falls Public School District is doing to secure our video conferences through Zoom.
The safety and well-being of our students and faculty while using the Internet is a top priority for Oconto Falls Public Schools. The district was able to purchase education-specific Zoom licenses for district employees, and this has enabled us to enhance the security and safety of our Zoom meetings through administrative settings that are not available through free versions of Zoom. In addition to district-level precautions, there are some settings our teachers have been instructed to change themselves to help secure their Zoom meetings.
- Teachers Adjust The Following Zoom Meeting Settings
- Disable join before host
- Embed password in meeting link for one-click join
- Enable the waiting room
- Disable file transfer
- Disable Use Personal Meeting ID when scheduling a meeting
At a minimum, these settings prevent anonymous bad actors from causing problems in Zoom classes. Additionally, there are a few more practices we encourage teachers to employ to secure their meetings even more.
- Use district email, district Google Calendar, Seesaw, Schoology, or Google Classroom to share Zoom meeting IDs instead of publishing Zoom meeting IDs publicly or through social media.
- Do not use your personal meeting ID (a 10-digit number like a phone number) to host regular meetings.
- Disable the private chat setting.
- Leave default settings to only allow the meeting host to screen share.
- Enable screen sharing for all participants only if planning to allow students to share during the session.
The Technology Services department and the rest of the instructional technology team are committed to keeping our staff and students safe online. With these precautions, we intend to provide a safe and productive environment for video conferencing across the district.
Corey Jeffers
Director of Technology