Breakout Rooms
Teams
Zoom
Below you will see a quick comparison chart addressing some of the most asked about features of breakout rooms. To learn more about each platform, click the link above to go to that platform's section.
Last updated: December 2020
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Max # of rooms |
50 |
50 |
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Assign automatically |
Yes |
Yes |
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Assign manually |
Yes |
Yes |
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Participants can choose room |
No1 |
Yes |
|
Pre-assign rooms |
No |
Yes |
|
Enter rooms as instructor |
Yes |
Yes |
|
Send announcements to rooms |
Yes2 |
Yes |
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“Ask for help” button |
No3 |
Yes |
|
Call back to main meeting |
Yes |
Yes |
|
Timer |
No4 |
Yes |
|
Rename rooms |
Yes |
Yes |
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Whiteboard in breakout rooms |
Yes |
Yes |
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Video allowed in rooms |
Yes |
Yes |
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Screen sharing allowed in rooms |
Yes |
Yes |
|
Recording allowed in rooms |
Yes |
Yes |
|
Co-host can create/manage rooms |
No5 |
Yes |
- You can manually assign rooms, so you could ask students which room they want to go to and then put them in manually.
- Announcements go to the chat section, so suggest students open chat once they get in their rooms.
- There is no “ask for help” button in Teams breakout rooms. However, students can click the main Teams screen and send the instructor a chat message.
- There is no specific timer option in Teams breakout rooms. Assigning a time keeper in each breakout room can help. They can use their phone or a timer from here: https://timertopia.wordpress.com/new-timers/ Links to an external site.. You can also send reminder announcements.
- This feature is supposed to be added soon, but we do not have a date.
Teams
Breakout rooms can be created in general Teams meetings and in meetings within channels. You must enable new meeting experience to have the breakout option (Teams -> Settings -> General -> Check “Turn on new meeting experience”). Currently, you can only start breakout rooms in the desktop version of Teams; breakout rooms can be attended from any instance of Teams (web, desktop, phone app).
Additional information about Teams breakout rooms will be added as it becomes available. For now, here are some general articles about the rooms:
Guide to Teams breakout rooms Links to an external site.
Information about breakout rooms Links to an external site.
Zoom
Information about Zoom breakout rooms Links to an external site.
Creating breakout rooms during a meeting Links to an external site.
Pre-assigning breakout rooms Links to an external site.
Let students choose a breakout room Links to an external site.
Students joining a breakout room Links to an external site.