About the functionality of break out rooms

[zwenneke]

I have a very specific question about how break out rooms function. 

To me, it is not clear from a student perspective what I can do when I am in a breakout room. I know that I can go back to the main room. and back to the breakout room I originally was.

But, I would like to have the option that students can hop form one room to another, would that be possible? Let say, have 24 students, and 4-6 breakout rooms, all 24 students need to be free to go in and out every breakout room. How can I arrange that? 

Thanks in advance. I hope someone can make me happy and tell me that this is possible.

[rmurchshafer]

Hi Zwenny,

It sounds to me like you are asking about Zoom, not Canvas. If so this might not be the best spot to ask.  But I do happen to know that with breakout rooms in Zoom there is no way for participants to move between breakout rooms.  Only the Host can assign people to breakout rooms and once there all the participant can do it to go back to the main room.

If you have more questions about Zoom functionality I suggest checking out the support pages on Zoom's web site

 Zoom Help Center 

Rick

[zwenneke]

Sorry to disappoint you, but I am NOT asking about ZOOM. I know what can be done in ZOOM. I am asking about conference in canvas. Because it is also possible in canvas conference to let students start there own conference, You can enable that or disbale that, so I hoped for this function as well.

FYI I have worked with break out rooms in both. 

[rmurchshafer]

Zwenny,

Canvas conferences are powered by a product named BigBlueButton.  I don't find anything about Breakout rooms in the Canvas Guides sections about Conferences, but on BigBlueButton's support site I found the following which might be useful Create and manage breakout rooms – Blindside Networks Customer Support Portal 

From what I read there, when you create the Breakout room you can select to Allow users to choose a breakout room to join. That's a nice feature that I wish Zoom had.  Anyway, I don't have enough people to test this but it seems like if that option is enabled students should be able to choose a room to enter, come back to the main room and then choose another.  Again, this is untested and I can't find confirmation that this is how it works, but it seems like it should.

Rick

[zwenneke]

thanks, I will try.

[buddyoshi]

I have the same question. I have students working in groups of 3 on an assignment, but I don't want to spend time checking who is in which group and then sorting students into groups in CANVAS. Can I set up, say 12 break out rooms and ask students to move to the room that corresponds with their group number?

[zwenneke]

Yes you can! You can show the division on a slide. Click option to let them choose the BOR. This is possible in Zoom and canvas conference. I did it always this way: saved me time.