Online Rooms:
Educator Guide
Meetings
Breakout Rooms
Author: Kev Lavery
Last Updated: 28/01/2016 In this guide you will learn about:
 How to set up and organise Breakout Rooms
 Functions of Breakout Rooms
 Restrictions within Breakout Rooms
 Sharing Breakout Room content
 Saving and keeping Breakout Rooms content
Breakout Rooms allow you a space inside a training session, meeting or
presentation to break into small groups. This tool essentially splits the online
environment into a range of separate rooms that you as the Host can access and
communicate with but there is no other overlap of content.
You can create anywhere from 1 – 20 Breakout Rooms in your meeting room with a
maximum of 200 participants.
Online Rooms can be accessed by clicking on meeting room link or accessing
via your Connect unit.
Setting up Breakout Rooms
1. Open your meeting room. As Breakout Rooms are most useful in discussion/group work
scenarios they will likely need less Pods than you would have normally used.
2. On the right hand side of your screens you will see the Layout bar.
Your meeting will come with three default Layouts:
1. Sharing
2. Discussion
3. Collaboration
These have different arrangements of different types of Pods to suit their descriptive
titles. Select each on to have a look at the different types of Layouts and different
configurations of Pods available to you. This aspect of meetings is nearly endless in
terms of its customisation possibilities.
To add a new layout, you can use the + symbol in the bottom right hand corner.
To create a Layout for your Breakout Rooms, click the + symbol in the Layout tab.
3. This can also be achieved through the Layout drop down menu
4. You can duplicate an existing Layout and make adjustments or create a new layout from
scratch.
5. Choosing to Create a new blank layout will open, as stated, a completely blank
Layout; the screen will essentially be empty.
Different activities will have different requirements but you will likely want the
following pods: Chat Window (for those without working mics), File Share,
Discussion Notes and either a Share or a Whiteboard.
6. Setting up your main Share Pod by selecting Pods>Share>Add New Share.
You can also select from the Share Pods you already have in use but having a new Share Pod just
for Breakout Rooms might create a simpler workflow.
7. By default this new Pod will take up the whole screen.
8. Hover your mouse over the bottom right hand corner of the Pod to enable resizing.
When you see the double arrows symbol click and hold your mouse.
While still holding drag to resize your Share Pod.
9. If you want to change the title of any of your Pods (to assist in your Pod management) double
click the title text in the light grey section of the Pod. By default this will be Share and then a
number. Change it to something suitable for your sessions.
10. To enable the Whiteboard function of this Share Pod select Share My Screen>Share
Whiteboard.
In terms of discussion tasks Whiteboards are the most flexible tools (and should suit the different
styles of your various Breakout groups).
11. Set up the following Pods:
Attendees
Files
Chat
Discussion Notes
12. Organise these Pods into what you feel is the most useful setup for your type of activities. The
suggested starting Layout for Breakout Rooms is this:
13. You can now begin uploading information and instructions. You can have everything organised
and ready to go before your session starts. When you are ready to begin your Breakout Room you
simply need to select the Breakout Layout and the Breakout Room View.
14. In the Attendees Pod select the Breakout Room View (which looks like an X).
15. Organise your participants into their groups. This can be done manually by dragging and
dropping participants or by selecting Evenly Distribute From Main.
16. The + symbol in the Breakout Rooms Pod can be used to create new rooms. Create enough
rooms to accommodate your participants and distribute them across. You can create up to 20
Breakout Rooms.
17. Explain your instructions to your participants and click Start Breakouts. If you have
successfully launched your breakouts you will receive this message.
18. Unless you have placed yourself into a Breakout Room you are now in the Main Room alone.
You can communicate with the rooms by either selecting Broadcast Message
19. Or by dragging and dropping yourself into each room and communicating within that room.
20. Your participants are able to communicate with you by writing in the Breakouts’ Communicate
with your Hosts Pod (this is what the Attendees Pod becomes during Breakouts)
Managing Breakout Rooms
1. Inside the Breakout Room each Participant is promoted to Presenter status giving them new
abilities to interact with the Pods in the room.
2. As a Host in the main room you can quickly glance at how each group is progressing by viewing
any of their Breakout Rooms’ Pods.
3. You can also communicate with all Breakout Rooms by sending a Broadcast Message. This can
be useful for time warnings or any additions to instructions.
4. When you are ready to finish up send a timely Broadcast Message warning to allow the activity
time to wrap up.
5. Once this has elapsed select End Breakouts.
Sharing and Saving Breakout Content
1. Back in the Main Room you can share any of the individual Breakout Rooms’ Pods.
2. You can also Save an RTF copy of the Discussion Notes (although this can only occur when
you are still in the Breakout). You can, however, easily restart Breakouts if there is work you wish
to retrieve. Until you Remove the Breakout Room the work remains there.
3. You can also Save a PDF copy of Whiteboards (although, again, this can only occur when you
are still in the Breakout).
4. Selecting Adobe PDF as your Printer will prompt a PDF Save dialogue box.
5. If your participants would like to keep their own copy of their materials they can carry out this
same process if you reopen the Breakout Rooms.
6. Their information will remain in their Breakout Rooms until you Remove that room. To do this
you select the x icon next to that room.
7. Selecting Remove here will permanently delete all content in the room.