Zoom has announced a host of new features aimed at educators and students. These features include enhancements to the Breakout Rooms feature, “Anywhere Polls”, and newly added support for virtual background and blur on Chromebooks. According to the company, it added virtual backgrounds and blur features on Zoom for Chrome after requests from education customers since Chromebooks are popular among students and teachers. “Virtual background and blur for Chromebooks is extremely beneficial to our students and teachers. Many students were reluctant to turn their cameras on before this feature enhancement,” Rod Smith, Chief Technology Officer, Clayton County Public Schools said in a press statement. Clayton County Public Schools is one of the customers that requested the feature.
The Breakout Rooms feature on Zoom allows conference hosts to split attendees into separate breakout rooms for group activities. It is a popular feature among education users. The new Program Audio feature will allow meeting hosts to share content with audio to breakout rooms, adding the ability to share videos with audio.