This week was our first week of in person classes being cancelled due to COVID-19. I had wondered what this was going to look like for our courses going forward and it seems as though the only class that is taking a technology approach to continue with lectures is with this  class!

Today, we had class on a program called Zoom. I have recently been hearing lots about this program for conference calls and connecting with staff, but had not used it before. Overall, I was quite impressed with the overall quality of the program, as it feels like most programs like FaceTime, Skype or Facebook calling have major bugs and limits, which makes it difficult to use. Here is an outline of some of the Pros and Cons that I came up with for Zoom:

Pros:

  • Video Calling/Audio Calling
  • Can bring multiple people into calls (perfect for our situation)
  • Screen sharing (great for presentations)

Cons:

  • People can get distracted by other things around them (less likely to focus than being in a classroom setting). That being said, we don’t have the option to be in classrooms right now, so this program provides a great alternative
  • Glitchy. This one feels pretty unavoidable with most technology and I think people expect it. Perhaps the program is also a bit delayed due to the amount of people using it
  • Having to use headphones while using to improve sound quality

Obviously after only using it once for this lecture, I feel that these pros and cons probably don’t give it a full overview, but in terms of using it for an online class setting I thought it worked very well!

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