At-Home Learning with Zoom
Moira Sirois and Katie Vastola
With a little over a month of distance learning completed, students have had time to get used to a new style of learning.
Teachers are using many different platforms to assign their students work. Some teachers post announcements and assignments on Canvas or Google Classroom, some use websites like Khan Academy and Flocabulary, and others hold video classes over Zoom.
Zoom is an online video conference website that allows students and teachers to interact and ask face to face questions. “It is helpful to receive live answers to questions people ask because it is easier to understand the material,” said sophomore Stella Grimes.
With people in quarantine, Zoom attempts to make it easier for students to learn from home. While teachers and students are adapting to this new learning schedule, Zoom gives people the chance to make at home learning as straightforward as possible.
“I do like interacting with my teachers online because it gives me a chance to ask questions and understand the content that we are learning,” said sophomore Jackson Hoover.
Some teachers are also offering office hours, which allow students to ask questions or clarify work. Hoover also mentions that teachers are setting up one on one calls with students for conferences and assistance.
“[Zoom] is an effective program because it allows the whole class to interact with each other as we would normally, but there are some issues with sound quality and video quality,” said Grimes.
Freshman Thomas McLenahan, on the other hand, does not like using Zoom. “I do not think that [Zoom] is productive because the teachers cannot present as much content,” he said.
Initially, sophomore Amelia Bernstein said her teachers had not done Zoom classes. Now, after having used Zoom a couple times, she said, “I like it because you can get your questions answered quickly rather than sending an email.”
Being able to ask a question and get an answer right away, just as you would in an in-person class, is helpful to a lot of students because they are able to ask their question as soon as they think of it and they can get an answer while the material is still fresh.
Bernstein also said she likes Zoom because it provides more structure in her schedule and day. She said, “It happens at a certain time so I cannot procrastinate it.”
