Start your meeting

In this article: How to launch a scheduled meeting so you and your students can join the live session. All Plans

You've scheduled a meeting and the time is almost here. The Start Meeting button becomes available 5 minutes before your meeting is scheduled to begin, giving you a moment to get set up before students join.

Launch your meeting

Go to Courses and click on the course that has a scheduled meeting.
Open Manage Course → Meetings.
The Start Meeting button appears 5 minutes before the scheduled time. Click it to begin.
Once the meeting is live, you and your students will see a green ON AIR indicator.

What your students see

Students see a meeting page with a Launch Meeting button that becomes clickable 5 minutes before the session starts. They click it to join.

Tip: Join your meeting a minute or two early to test your audio and video. That way you're ready when students start arriving.

What you can do during a meeting

Once you're inside a built-in meeting, you have access to these tools:

Screen sharing — Share your screen, a specific window, or a browser tab.
Whiteboard — Draw, annotate, and add shapes. In Video Conference mode, you can enable multi-user whiteboard so students can draw alongside you.
Polls — Create quick polls to check understanding or gather opinions. Results display as a chart everyone can see.
Chat — Text chat with threaded replies, emoji reactions, and the ability to edit or delete messages.
Raise hand — Students click a dedicated Raise Hand button so you can see who has a question. You'll see a list of raised hands with names.
Layout options — Switch between layouts (cameras only, presentation only, or both) depending on what you're doing at that moment.
Push-to-talk — Press M on your keyboard to quickly toggle your microphone on and off.
Away mode — Step away temporarily. This mutes your mic and hides your camera with one click.

Tip: For interactive workshops, try enabling the multi-user whiteboard and running a poll at the start of each section. These tools keep students engaged, especially in longer sessions.

Good to know

The Start Meeting button only appears within the 5-minute window before the scheduled time. If you don't see it yet, the meeting isn't quite ready.
You can also access the meeting from the Student View of the meeting page, which shows you exactly what your students will see.
For full details on setting up and configuring meetings (types, recording, Zoom), see Manage course meetings.

Frequently Asked Questions

Can I start a meeting early?

The Start Meeting button appears 5 minutes before the scheduled time. You can't start earlier than that. If you need more lead time, schedule the meeting to start a few minutes before you plan to begin teaching.

What happens if I'm late starting the meeting?

The Start Meeting button remains available after the scheduled time. Students will see that the meeting hasn't started yet and can wait. Start the meeting whenever you're ready — there's no automatic cutoff.

Do students get notified when the meeting starts?

Students receive notifications about scheduled meetings based on your course's notification settings. Once the meeting is live, the ON AIR indicator shows on the meeting page so students know they can join.