Last week we talked about the design framework that separates intentional vILT from sessions that just happen. This week we’re getting tactical.
One of the most consistent things I see when I work with facilitators is this: they’re using about 20% of what their platform already offers. They know how to share their screen, launch a poll, and use chat, but the features that could transform their sessions—the ones hiding in plain sight—go untouched every single time.
Whether you’re running sessions on Zoom, Microsoft Teams, or Adobe Connect, there is a toolkit already in your hands. You don’t need a new subscription, a third-party add-on, or a bigger budget. You need to know what you have and design with it intentionally.
Note: Not every feature is covered below. I tried to pick ones that you most likely might not be using regularly. Additionally, new features are released every day, so staying up-to-date on each release is critical as a facilitator or technical producer.
Zoom: The Features Most Facilitators Skip
Reactions and Nonverbal Feedback
Zoom’s Reactions panel gives learners a low-stakes way to respond in real time: thumbs up, clapping, raised hand, yes/no, go slower, and more. These are not just nice-to-haves. When you build them into your facilitation— “Give me a thumbs up when you’ve finished reading” or “Raise your hand if this sounds familiar in your work”—you create visible participation without requiring anyone to unmute.
📌 Pro Tip: Start your session by having everyone practice the reactions. It normalizes their use and ensures learners know they’re there.
Annotation Tools
When you share your screen in Zoom, you can enable annotation tools for participants. Learners can stamp, draw, type, and highlight directly what you’re showing. This is one of the most underused engagement features in the platform.
Use it for: prioritization exercises where learners stamp their top choice, labeling diagrams or process flows, quick agree/disagree votes displayed visually on screen, and warm-up activities where everyone stamps their location on a map or marks a point on a scale.
📌 Pro Tip: Go to your sharing settings and enable “Annotations by participants” before your session. Then build at least one annotation activity into your design so it feels intentional, not accidental.
Spotlight Video
Spotlight lets you pin one participant’s video to center stage for everyone in the room. Use it when a learner is sharing out after a breakout, when you want to honor a contribution by making that person visible, or when a co-facilitator or guest is speaking. It’s a small move with a big signal: what you’re saying matters enough for everyone to see you.
Timed Breakout Rooms
Most facilitators know how to launch a breakout. Fewer know about the built-in countdown timer inside Zoom’s breakout room settings. When you set a time limit, learners see a countdown in the corner of their screen. No more guessing, no more “are we done?” anxiety, and no more rooms that run five minutes over because nobody knew when to wrap up. The timer contains focus. When learners know exactly how much time they have, they use it differently.
📌 Pro Tip: Pair the countdown with a broadcast message at the two-minute mark reminding groups to choose a spokesperson and wrap up their key point. You’ll get sharper, faster debriefs.
Built-In Polls
Zoom’s native polling lets you pre-build questions in your account and launch them at the right moment during delivery. Results can be shared with the group instantly. Use polls to activate prior knowledge before new content, run quick pulse checks mid-session, close a section with a knowledge check, or surface assumptions the group holds before you challenge them.
Whiteboards
Whiteboards are a powerful tool for creating and ideating, designing, and diagraming, collaborating, and planning and tracking projects, work, and commitments. Use whiteboards to kick off a topic, to debrief an activity, or get commitment from participants on behavior changes.
Ask to Start Video
Rather than demanding cameras on or just hoping learners will turn them on, use Zoom’s “Ask to Start Video” feature. It sends a gentle prompt to the participant. It’s an invitation, not a mandate—and that distinction matters for psychological safety.
Zoom Docs
Maybe one you have never used, Zoom Docs. Use a Zoom Doc to create collaborative, AI-powered, and persistent learning experiences. It enables real-time, shared note-taking, interactive group work within breakout rooms, structured agenda tracking, and serves as a centralized hub for pre-work and post-training resources.
Immersive View
Zoom Immersive View places up to 25 participants onto a single virtual background, creating a shared, engaging environment for meetings or webinars. Hosts can activate this via the “View” menu, opting for automatic or manual placement, and can even use custom scenes. This creates community during an opening activity, discussion, or closing.
Zoom Apps
A few apps that I really like and have added to my Zoom instance are Music, Timer, and Prezi. Music enables you to use royalty-free music. I like to use it when people are arriving, reflecting in an activity and during breaks. Timer enables you to set a timer or click presets for activities, discussions, or breaks. Set the timer or choose from preset times and show that time actively in the meeting. Finally, Prezi is another app I love. It displays text and images on screen beside you in real-time, ensuring equal focus on you and your content. These are just three apps, but there are hundreds more, both free and paid. Check them all out here.
Microsoft Teams: More Than a Meetings App
Together Mode
Together Mode puts everyone into a shared visual environment—an auditorium, a coffee shop, and a classroom—instead of the standard grid of floating boxes. It sounds like a novelty, but it genuinely changes the energy in a room. Participants feel more like they’re in a shared space, which increases the sense of connection and presence. Try it during a discussion or reflection segment and watch how the conversation shifts.
Polls and Word Clouds
Teams has a built-in Forms integration for polling during meetings. Word clouds in particular are powerful for surfacing collective thinking: “Type one word that describes the biggest challenge your team faces right now” produces an instant visual that grounds the conversation in shared reality.
Raise Hand and Reactions
Like Zoom, Teams has a raise hand feature and a reactions panel. These are your friction-free participation tools—the ones that let every learner in the room signal engagement without unmuting or typing a full response. Design for them explicitly: “If you’ve ever experienced this, give me a heart react.” That one move surfaces shared experience and creates connection without putting anyone on the spot.
Breakout Rooms
Teams Breakout Rooms now support pre-assignment of participants, the ability for the facilitator to move between rooms, and a timer that participants can see. The facilitator can also send announcements to all rooms simultaneously critical for time management and direction reminders mid-activity.
Microsoft Whiteboard
Teams integrate directly with Microsoft Whiteboard, giving you a shared collaborative canvas that multiple participants can edit simultaneously. It supports sticky notes, drawing, and templates—a solid built-in options for brainstorming, sorting, and group work, especially if your organization is already in the Microsoft ecosystem.
📌 Pro Tip: Pre-build your Whiteboard template before the session. A blank canvas can stall a group. Give them a structure—a T-chart, a grid, labeled zones—so they jump straight into the thinking, not the setup.
Adobe Connect: The Power User’s Platform
Adobe Connect has a steeper learning curve than Zoom or Teams, but it offers more customization and control than either. If your organization uses it, the investment in learning it deeply is worth every hour.
Custom Layouts and Pods
This is Connect’s signature capability and its biggest differentiator. Unlike Zoom or Teams where the interface is largely fixed, Adobe Connect lets you build completely custom room layouts using pods—modular containers for video, chat, files, polls, whiteboards, and more. You can design a different layout for each phase of your session: an engagement layout for discussion, a content layout for instruction, a breakout layout for group work. Switching layouts is a single click and instantly shifts the visual environment for every learner in the room.
Persistent Rooms
Unlike Zoom or Teams where a meeting resets, Adobe Connect rooms persist. Your layouts, uploaded files, poll results, and whiteboard content are all there the next time you open the room. This is valuable for recurring sessions, cohort-based programs, or any training that spans multiple sessions over time.
Notes Pod
The Notes Pod is Connect’s shared text area visible to the whole group. Use it as a visible parking lot for off-topic questions, a shared capture space for learner reflections, or a running record of key decisions from a group discussion. Participants can be given editing rights so they contribute directly.
Breakout Rooms with Independent Layouts
Adobe Connect’s breakout rooms support independent layouts—each small group can have its own whiteboard, its own chat, and its own file sharing area. The facilitator can move between rooms freely and can bring a breakout group’s whiteboard back into the main room for the debrief, making the share-out visual and immediate.
Polls (and Strategic Result-Sharing)
Connect’s polling includes multiple choice, short answer, and Likert scale formats. One feature worth using: you can choose when to share poll results with participants. This lets you design reveal moments—show results before discussion to spark reaction or hold them until after to avoid anchoring the conversation.
The Platform Is Just the Container
Every feature in this post is already available to you. Most of them are free. None requires a tech degree to use. What they require is intentional design and a little practice.
Start with one. Build it into your next session on purpose. See what happens.
Check our socials to see demos of each of these tools later this week:
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