How to Use a Zoom Welcome Screen

 

What you'll need:

PowerPoint OR Google Slides

 

This is not a setting in your zoom account. This is a HACK! 

And a super simple one, at that.
First things first- when you schedule your zoom meeting, you'll probably want to set the option for participants' mics to be muted upon entry. You will need to turn off the waiting room option and allow them to just join right into the meeting. More on this later.

How to make your welcome screen:

Open up your choice of PowerPoint or Google Slides. I prefer PowerPoint, mostly because I have purchased lots of fonts that I love to use. PowerPoint is also just much easier and has lots of options that Google Slides doesn't. But whichever you're more comfortable with will work!

First you'll want to set your background. My classroom background is from a Clip Art set that I purchases from EduClips on TpT. But you can totally just google the background of your choice and copy+paste it!

Here's a watercolor image from Google that I did just that with:

Next, start adding your text. I like to give the text an outline and then give it more 'weight'. If you don't know what that means, just play around with it. I can totally make a general PowerPoint post sometime if that would help!

You can add other images, but they really need to have transparent backgrounds, or they won't look very good at all! If you have created a Bitmoji for yourself, you can install the Bitmoji extension on the Google Chrome browser. Then you can use that extension to ctrl+copy and ctrl+paste onto your slide. I usually just right click and save mine to have easy access to them in case I want to add them to anything else in the future. If your Bitmoji doesn't have a transparent background when you copy & paste it, just right click the one you want, save it to your computer, and then insert it onto your slide as an image.

A little playing around with the text, Bitmoji, and some other clip art purchased from TpT (there's a TON of free clipart on there with transparent backgrounds!), and my new slide is ready to go!

Make sure you save your beautiful creation to your computer.

How to use this slide for your Zoom welcome screen:

Here's the hack! Log in to your meeting decently early. Earlier than you think any of the kids are going to be joining. MUTE YOUR MIC! Just do it before you forget. LOL. Then select the Screen Sharing option at the bottom. If you want to practice with this, and I think you should, just start a random NEW meeting (not your scheduled one) and try this all out. No one else will be able to join, so don't worry about that. Once your screen sharing is turned on, go to your PowerPoint or Google Slide that you created, and present it! Just leave it there until you're ready to begin your meeting. I like to give a few extra minutes after the scheduled time just to help everyone get logged in before it starts. Your slide will then be there when everyone joins, until you stop the screen sharing. Make sure you aren't doing anything else on your computer or they will be able to see that instead!

Here are two of my finished welcome screens:

You can see that the styles and formats are very different- just be creative and have fun! It could be fun for the early kids to have a special trivia question on your slide to figure out while they wait, and you can tell them the answer during the meeting. There are so many possibilities to make this fun!

I think this helps you AND the kids/parents so that everyone knows what to expect, and there's no question if/when the meeting is actually starting. Even if your slide is super simple, it will work!

I hope this is helpful and makes your Zoom meetings more enjoyable!

XOXO,
Mrs. Ryder