The year 2020 has made online tutoring increasingly common for learners and tutors. Due to the lockdowns and subsequent restrictions, the in-person tutoring sessions could not take place and a number of video conferencing platforms became popular.

One of the prominent names that blew up in popularity during the pandemic was Zoom. This is a cloud-based video conferencing platform that helps individuals to interact with one another with the help of a webcam, headset, and microphone.

Zoom became the fastest-growing app of the pandemic, generating around $2.6 billion in 2020, and its valuation exceeded $100 billion during the pandemic. It became a life savior for the online tutoring industry enabling tutors and learners to communicate seamlessly. The software helps in enhancing the learning experience and allows the tutors to implement many of the same teaching methods as used in traditional classrooms.

Having much more reliable and consistent connectivity for video and voice calls than any other video conferencing platform, Zoom has elevated the reach of tutors significantly. As a video conferencing platform, it serves an array of purposes from meetings to webinars and online lessons. Some of the most notable features of Zoom are discussed below:

Key Features of Zoom

Group Sessions: Zoom can be used by the tutors offering online sessions to several students at once and make the sessions more engaging. It can have up to 100 participants join the session with a free account which lasts for 40 minutes per meeting.

Screen Sharing: Just like Skype, Zoom also offers this feature of sharing the screen with the other participants in the online session to make the complicated concepts easy to understand. The added functionality which Zoom brings is the ability to annotate what is on the screen.

Online Whiteboard: Tutors can use the digital whiteboard to draw on it, add text, or do anything that can be normally done on a whiteboard all in real-time for the students to see. The students in the online session can also access this feature.

Session Recording: Zoom also allows recording the online session to be watched back later. This feature is particularly useful for students who want to make notes and learn at their own pace. The recording will be stored on the device and can also be shared with other students by uploading it to the cloud.

Private Chat: Students can send direct messages to other students and teachers as well. Although the tutor does not have access to the private chat between the students, the feature can be disabled anytime by the tutor.

Virtual Backgrounds: All work and no play makes the classes dull and boring. To add some fun and colors to the online sessions, tutors and students can set any image as their background. The tool especially comes in handy when the actual background is messy and unprofessional.

How Zoom can Benefit Online Tutoring Businesses

Of course, there is much more to the features of Zoom than just these features. Its success comes from its notable benefits ranging from having the largest meeting participants to an abundance of tutoring-oriented and user-centric features. Tutoring businesses all around the world are choosing Zoom because of the key benefits including:

Available for Free: Although Zoom is a subscription-based platform, it also allows to hold an unlimited number of 40 minutes sessions without any cost. Great for the tutoring businesses looking for trial or for the startups who are not ready to invest in an expensive video conferencing tool. Moreover, many businesses were not even prepared for the hard and expensive online work transition. Zoom serves the best services for such businesses.

Highest Number of Participants: While the free plan supports up to 100 participants in the meeting, the paid plans can host up to 500 participants in the online sessions. Zoom also offers an additional add-on that extends the number of participants up to 1000. The closest contenders of Zoom in the market have a maximum capacity of 250 participants.

Ease of Use: As the tutors are still getting acquainted with the online classes, it is important to not make things more complicated for them. Zoom rooms offer ease of use to the tutors and they do not need any specialized IT support to conduct online classes seamlessly.

Security: Although security has been a matter of contention for Zoom as soon as the users on the platform started to increase in the wake of COVID – 19, the company has released various statements regarding its commitment to improve this factor. Zoom has made various changes to its security policy and implemented many new features.

Customer Support: Even though the platform is so easy to use and there is hardly any need for support, the company boasts excellent customer support for its clients around the world. Phone support is available round the clock and customers can get real quick answers to their queries.

Online Tutoring Software Integrated with Zoom

Yo!Coach is an online tutoring software that comes Pre-integrated with Zoom for its users. With a host of features like audio/video conferencing, text chat, group sessions, screen sharing/recording, virtual whiteboard, and many more, the software becomes ideal to launch an online tutoring platform.

The integration of Zoom in Yo!Coach makes the software suitable for any business size and enables it to take that step up to keep tutoring businesses at the forefront.

How to Use Zoom With Yo!Coach

To enable Zoom in the Yo!Coach powered platforms, go to Settings > General Settings > Third Party API in the admin dashboard. Zoom needs to be activated under the “Meeting Tool” and all the required information needs to be filled in.

Click “Save Changes” at the bottom of the page and Zoom will be set as the default video conferencing tool in the platform.