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Online Teaching through Zoom or Microsoft Teams

As teachers have different teaching needs, some of you may want to explore and use other teleconferencing tools besides Zoom for conducting your online lessons. The University of Hong Kong (HKU) has acquired campus licenses for both Zoom and Microsoft Teams.

To help teachers in choosing a teleconferencing tool that best fits their needs, we have prepared the following table comparing the features of Zoom and Microsoft Teams.

Feature Comparison: Zoom and Teams

Feature Microsoft Teams Zoom
No. of Participants Up to 300 participants Up to 300 participants
Meeting Duration Unlimited Unlimited
Authority to Join Join via a meeting link /Admitted by Host Can be password protected
A fixed URL for meeting every time No Yes
Calendar Integrations Yes, MS Outlook Yes
Host Set by Meeting Organizer Host  and co-host
Video Spotlight No Pinned by Host
Silence Others Host Host
Remove Participant Host Host
Waiting Room Yes Yes
Screen Sharing One at a time One at a time
Who can share screen Host (can be more than one) Controlled by Host
Annotation No Yes
Whiteboard Yes Yes
Screen sharing using iOS/Android devices Yes Yes
Chat Yes Yes
Raise Hand No Yes
Integration with HKU Moodle Yes Yes
Polling No, recommend to create polling using MS Forms and share the link to participants on MS Teams Yes
Record Meeting Yes, cloud recording and saved on MS Stream Yes, cloud recording or local recording
Breakout Rooms No Yes

Reference: Esor Huang; With the permission to translate, edit and share in an English version

How-to Videos on Microsoft Teams and Zoom
We have also prepared step-by-step videos guiding HKU Staff and Students in using the two tools.

Videos on Microsoft Teams: https://hku.to/UseTeams
Videos on Zoom: https://hku.to/UseZoom

If you have questions, please feel free to contact us at our Whatsapp Hotline (+852 6437-8034 / http://wa.me/85264378034).