Many instructors and students prefer to use a virtual background in Zoom. Did you know that a virtual background can also be included as part of the course instruction? Imagine it as a virtual version of standing near a projected image in a brick and mortar classroom.
To add an image as your virtual background, navigate to Settings menu. Select “Backgrounds & Filters”. Then, click the plus sign on the right of the screen and select “Add Image” to add an image from your computer.
Remember to include yourself in the visual composition of what the students will be seeing. For example, if you want to use an image of the Golden Gate Bridge to start a discussion on travel destinations, do not block a large portion of the image with yourself. Also, using images with landscape orientation can avoid automatic cropping by Zoom, which tends to happen with portrait orientation.
Images of documents or graphs/charts can also be effectively used as a background. Again, imagine referencing a projected image in an in-person class meeting.
Depending upon students’ technology, they can also use images as their virtual background to avoid the more complicated process of having them take turns sharing their screens one by one. For example, students in breakout rooms could all have an image of a type of food they like as their background and they could describe the food and ask one another questions about their favorite dishes.
Setting an image as the virtual background offers a fairly simple, more interactive way of showing an image than using the “Share Screen” function.
*Thanks to John Paluch, Northwestern University, who gave a short presentation on this tip at the MWALLT lightning talk conference, February 13, 2021.
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