Zoom is experiencing some technical difficulties and keeps disconnecting. As a result teachers can currently often just join the classes with the student Zoom ID which means they can’t share their screen. We are working on fixing it however it really seems to be a Zoom issue so we have to wait until they get their act together.
Considering that the company is worth thousands of quadrillion billion trillion dollars I assume they might be able to pay for someone who can fix their software.
Can we just temporarily allow students to share screen? That seems like a better solution than no sharing at all.
1 Like
Thanks for saying that. I waited over 20 mins for my teacher who didn’t show up on Zoom…
2 Likes
Zoom won’t allow that. It’s quite infuriating really.
If it happens again a temporary workaround would be hopping on a shared Google ppt/doc so you can at least view the same file in real time and highlight items as you discuss them. But I get the point of face to face interactions for learning/teaching.
2 Likes
Good idea! Google Docs is definitely blocked in China, but I believe teachers already have to be on a VPN to access Zoom.
1 Like
I forgot about the GFW, but a quick search shows comparable replacements (QQ, Tencent, Office, etc). In an ideal world Zoom would work without issue.
2 Likes
without the sharing for the teacher to write on the screen made it a bit harder last night, but didn’t really hold us back. In fact, you could say it forced us to work harder on understanding what was being said. We were all able to follow along the course material without much issue
3 Likes
Thanks for everyone being so understanding. Its still happening, we are working on it, but it seems like there is not much we can do. Zoom is doing something and its not good.
They should get their act together soon hopefully though.
1 Like
Is this a regional Zoom issue? I use Zoom for work daily and haven’t encountered any noticeable issues in the past year.
1 Like
No VPN needed for Zoom. 
3 Likes
It’s a tech issue for the Zoom connection API with their partner companies. It doesn’t affect individual users.
No specific regional thing, the science behind all this is also beyond me
1 Like
I am very happy to report that Zooms issues have been resolved and the system runs normally again. Thanks for everyone’s patience
3 Likes
Is there an issue with uploading the annotated pdfs? For the past few classes I’m not able to download any.
1 Like
Yes there is a bug that currently doesn’t allow teachers to upload pdfs. We are working on getting that fixed asap
1 Like
I have had technical issues with Zoom disconnecting in Europe recently too, so it seems a bit sporadic.
I found out about DingTalk recently as a Chinese alternative to Zoom. I used it for a meeting and found it very good.
1 Like
Thanks. We used Vovo too which is a zoom clone from Tencent. Currently zoom is still the most reliable option though I find. We will keep our eye open though always for better options