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Steve Henneberry's avatar

As an educator, I have dealt with Zoom for language teaching quite a bit. In that context, while I tried to enforce a “camera on for attendance” rule, the university pushed back on this. It was frustrating, but as the courses were student-focused, they mostly remained active.

I have also done a fair bit of Zoom management for language conferences, and in such cases having at least a few attendees visible and unmuted is crucial. You need a few people (in quiet locations) to allow for natural reactions; otherwise, you cannot use humor as a tool for engagement. Nothing is worse when presenting online than sharing a humorous anecdote to blank screens and muted participants.

After all, if everyone is going to be invisible and muted, you should post the presentation/meeting to YouTube and go asynchronous for follow-up questions. However, this is just modern-day alchemy, as you are transmuting a meeting into a presentation, and the two are not the same.

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Success Basics™'s avatar

Platforms like Zoom and Teams having backgrounds to obscure backgrounds makes it easier to go on camera now. It expresses personality and helps as a conversation starter with new people🙂

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