While Zoom is the most widely used platform at Penn State for video conferencing, its never a bad idea to have a backup plan. Fortunately, the University has agreements with Microsoft and Google, both of whom offer free, easy to use alternatives to Zoom. Below, we’ve provided instructions on how to setup Google Meet and Microsoft Teams for video chat.

Google Meet

(If you have never activated your Penn State gsuite account, you will need to do so be before you complete the steps below by follow the steps below)

• go to meet.google.com and click the “Sign in” button on the top right of the screen
• type your PSU email address in the space provided, the click “next” (if prompted, indicate that you are logging in with a G Suite account)
• from the Google Meet homepage, press “+ Join or start a meeting”
• in the space provided, enter a relevant meeting nickname (this might be your course designation, your last name, etc) then press continue 
• if you have not used Meet before, once your meeting page launches, you may be asked to allow meet.google.com to use your computer’s camera and microphone. Be sure to allow both. 
• press the “Join now” button to enter the meeting.
• when you enter the meeting room, an “Add others” message should appear. This should provide you with a link as well as dial in information which you can share with others. You can copy this information to share with your class by pressing the “Copy joining info” button, then share it with your class via your agreed upon communication tool (ex. Canvas mail)
• once you are in the main presentation window, you will have access to all of your video conferencing essentials. 

• • Use the icons in the bottom middle of the screen to turn your microphone on or off, or leave the call
  • You can see a list of participants or access the chat by selecting the buttons in the top right corner of the screen.
  • Screen sharing is available in the bottom right of the screen (“Present Now”)
  • Click the ellipsis menu in the bottom right to access advanced settings, including recording your session.
  • Click on the nickname of your session in the bottom right to access the connection information, in case you need it again. 

NOTE: It is important to be aware that both you and your students will need to be logged into google using their Penn State accounts (ex. abc123@psu.edu) in order to access Google Meet. Because of the prevalence of personal google accounts, it is not unusual to have an existing (non PSU) google account, however those accounts will not work with Penn State’s Google Meet setup.

Microsoft Teams

Before you begin, it is recommended that you download the Microsoft Teams application and install it on your computer (while Microsoft Teams has a web based version, it is not compatible with all browsers). If you do not have the ability to install software on your computer, email Arts IT at aait-help@psu.edu.

• Open your Microsoft Teams application
• In the top right corner of the screen, press the button “Join or create team”
• Click on the blue “Create a team” button tile in the top right corner of your screen (you may need to roll your mouse over the “Create a team” tile for the button to appear). 
  • During this step, your screen may now be populated with a multitude of Teams tiles – these are recommendations for other groups you can join later. 
• Select “Class” from the team type menu
• Name your team. Because teams are persistent, it is recommended that you choose a name which will identify the course, the section and the semester (ex. TestClass 101 section 001 FA20). 
  • BEFORE you click next, make sure to click the blue “Change setting” text, next to the phrase “This team is searchable and discoverable”. Then uncheck the box to “Allow others to search for and discover this team”. Because this is for a class, you don’t want it to be findable by anyone at the University. If you decide to use Teams for a non class purpose, you may choose not to uncheck this setting.  
• After a moment, you will be prompted to add students (or other teachers) to this Teams space. While entering Penn State userIDs tends to be the most accurate way to add additional members, you can also type last names (Teams will autofill recommendations from the Penn State Directory). When you are finished adding members of the class (or if you would like to add them later), press the skip button. 
• You will now be dropped on your class’ Teams main page.
• When you are ready to initiate a video chat from this page, click on the “Meet” button in the top right hand corner. You will be promoted with some audio/video settings – when you are finished, press “Join now” 
• Once you are in the main presentation window, you will have access to all of your video conferencing essentials in the top right corner of your screen (see image below for icon descriptions)

By starting a meeting from within your class team space, an invitation to join will automatically be sent to all members that you have added to that team, so long as they have the Teams application open. However, if you would like to post the invitation somewhere else (ex. Canvas mail, or your Canvas announcements page), you can access the connection information by clicking on the Participants icon, then selecting the icon of two interlinked loops (see image). This will copy the information so it can be easily pasted. 

Once you setup Teams, you will be able to initiate a meeting by simply clicking on the “Meet” button.