Chat

You can open the chat by clicking the Chat button in the main Zoom toolbar. (If you are sharing your screen, you have to click the More button to see the Chat button.)

If you are not sharing your screen:

If you are sharing your screen:

Tip! You can change the size of the text in the Chat by hovering over the window and zooming in or out with your trackpad or by pressing CTRL or the Command key ⌘ (for PCs and Macs, respectively) and the + or - key.

For more information, see the Zoom support page for Using in-meeting chat Links to an external site..

As the host, you can decide whether attendees can use the chat feature only with you or with everyone (click “More” after you open the Chat menu).

Additionally, you can turn chat on/off during a meeting by changing the settings using the Security button. You can consider doing this strategically in order to reduce distractions.

If you save the chat locally to your computer, it will save any chats that you can see—those sent directly to you and those sent to everyone in the meeting or webinar. If you save the chat to the cloud, it will only save chats that were sent to everyone and messages sent while you were cloud recording. For more information, see the Zoom support page for Saving in meeting chat Links to an external site.. 

Saving chat automatically

We recommend that you save chats automatically. You can enable this setting by going to the Emory Zoom web portal Links to an external site., navigating to Settings and then to the In Meeting (Basic) section, and selecting Auto saving chats. 

Manually saving chat

During a meeting, you can manually save a chat as a text (.txt) file to your computer. Click Chat, the ellipsis (...), and then Save Chat. This will save your chat to your local recording location (The default is your Documents folder / Zoom / Folder with meeting name, date, and time.)

Saving chats to the Cloud

Sign in to the Emory Zoom web portal Links to an external site.. Go to Settings and click the Recording tab. Check the option for Save chat messages from the meeting / webinar under Cloud recording. In the meeting, you will need to start the cloud recording to save the chat (either manually or by enabling automatic cloud recording in your settings). 

When & How to Use Chat

• Check-in at the beginning of class to build community
  • What is something that you made you smile this week?
  • Does anyone have any good news they would like to share?
  • How is studying for the exam going?
• Q&A at the start or end of class
  • What do you already know about [topic]?
  • Are there any questions from yesterday's reading?
  • Here are the learning objectives we saw at the beginning of class. In our last few minutes, is there one or two in particular anyone would like to review?
• Chat breaks
  • We've just gone over a lot of information; let's pause here to have a discussion. What have we learned? What do you think about [topic]?

In general, try to avoid open-ended prompts like Are there any questions? and give students explicit, specific questions to answer.

Monitoring the Chat

Be aware that if you’re sharing your screen and only have one computer monitor, it can be difficult to use the Chat function. If you are unable to monitor the chat in real-time, consider:

• Having a dedicated person in your class who can unmute and point you to questions in the chat. (This can be a TA or a student.)
• Specify when you will check the Chat during class (e.g. you will pause every 5-10 minutes to see if there are questions or comments in the Chat that need to be addressed).
• Turn off the Chat feature except during dedicated portions of your class using the Security button.