Use of Whereby in Education or with children under 16 years

We are a general video communication service and we haven't adapted specifically for use in education, therefore, some precautions are worth mentioning when using it with minors. 
1) We recommend using a Pro or Business account, which gives you more control over your room and the users joining. Since a host must be present during a meeting, this prevents random users from joining and interrupting your meetings, keeping them moderated.
2) Students or minors under 16 years old should never register for an account in Whereby. They should only be guests in rooms owned by teachers. 
3) Rooms used with students should be kept locked at all times. Students will then have to knock and you, as a teacher, will have to allow them into the room. Tell the students to have their cameras on when knocking on the room so their face is visible before you accept them, and enter a name so you know who you're accepting.
4) Make sure all the students leave the room before the teacher leaves. By hovering your mouse cursor over the "Leave" button, you should see the "End meeting for all" option to remove everyone from the room. Students should never be allowed to use the room after the teacher leaves. 
5) We recommend hosting smaller groups of 4-6 participants in meetings, which makes it easier to manage and moderate the meeting.
6) Inform parents in advance of starting to use Whereby with some basic information of how the classes will work. It would also be advised to ask them to make sure that their kids only access your or your school's rooms. In case the kids want to use it outside of classes they should only do so in rooms created by their parents and under parental supervision. Kids and minors should never go into random rooms on our platform. 
7) Make sure students are running updated versions of Chrome.
8) For privacy concerns, we recommend never recording meetings with minors. 
9) Make a list of some ground rules for behavior in online meetings, such as: 

  • Be polite and talk friendly to other people in the call
  • Always use your own name, not a funny fake name or a nickname. Use your first name only.
  • If possible, sit somewhere where you can attend classes without any distractions and where you're not distracting others. If you have headphones, use them. 
  • Mute your microphone when you aren't speaking and use the "Raise hand" feature to let the teacher know you'd like to speak. You can also push the space bar and hold it down to ask a question and talk. 
  • If you want to talk to the teacher alone, send a message and ask the teacher to contact you.