My First Zoom Class Experience
By: Bebe Khuê Jacobs
Tags: Zoom, Remote Learning, Online Learning Tips, Education, Online Learning

It was almost three hours long with one five-minute break.

Yes! It was a looonng class but the teacher managed to keep us engaged. It was very fast-paced. I’m pretty tech-savvy, but it was still overwhelming. I could easily see how students could get lost in the class if they missed a few steps or a few words and they couldn’t interrupt the flow to get help. The teacher’s video feed broke a few times, but luckily it wasn’t during crucial moments. A few tools he used that was helpful:

Humor. That helped to keep us listening. Because if we could understand the jokes, we were listening. Shared Screen by the teacher and he used just a simple blank page to type up thoughts. I wished the typeface was bigger and easier to read. It made the students focus on the blinking cursor and look at what was appearing on the screen. Breakout Room was a good break from the large class to engage in small group discussions. Pass the Popcorn by having the students take turns to read out loud the reading assignment and make sure they read and pay attention. The transition between the popcorn pass could improve because we lost time between each reader having to unmute their mike and look for their document. Again, wasted time could have been minimized with everyone looking at the teachers shared screen. Email Flurry for class assignment submission. The teacher sent an email with the subject “Please reply-all to this email with your First Day assignment attached.” It was fun to hear all the email arrival notices in my inbox as if I was actually popular. Music — during the email flurry task, this helped to keep things moving along. Raising hand — or call on students randomly to participate and voice opinions.

Zroom for Improvement:

Repeat the documents’ name to open or type the document name onto the class text message. Or even better, if the teacher threw the PDF onto the chat so we all didn’t scramble to look for the files. A few students could not locate their files. I tried to focus and pay attention, but a few times, I missed a few points and wished they were repeated. Use Zoom Text Message to send: Class notes, PDF files, important points. Make sure students had the Zoom Text Message panel open during class. I didn’t even know there were chatters in the message area until halfway through the class.

I was pleasantly surprised that we were able to engage in this new form of education. It does take a bit to get used to. I wish I had two screens or that my mail screen was bigger. I needed one screen just for the Zoom call. Between the teacher’s shared screen and the class zoom text messages, there was not much room left on my screen.

Organization of class files! I found out quickly that this was important to be able to access the reading documents quickly. Although I wished that when we were doing the reading, the teacher would have thrown the reading text onto the shared screen so that we didn’t have to scramble to look for the files and then catch up to where the reading was in the text.

I still love the personal interaction of an in-person class. However, I’m glad that learning still can happen during the pandemic and this will open up more opportunities for learning for those who could only access it remotely.

I got a glimpse of the challenges of remote learning but still celebrate the opportunities for continuing education and student life on Zoom.