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- Online Learning with Zoom has many challenges
ONLINE LEARNING WITH ZOOM HAS MANY CHALLENGES
By: Jared Huey
Photo credits to zoom.us
As a result of the pandemic, the classroom experience for both teachers and students has radically changed. Shelter-in-place orders greatly limit social gatherings and non-essential travel.
Although schools are closed, learning continues. The alternative utilized by many teachers has been Zoom. Zoom is an online conference platform that allows many participants to join a meeting, providing participants the ability to virtually see and speak to each other.
With Zoom being the new primary way of communication between teachers and students, many opinions arise on its capability to replicate a classroom experience. Many like Zoom’s simplicity.
Lincoln senior Joseph Sarabia says, “I like the simple and user friendly interface. It is easy to use, and I can still communicate with my classmates.
Much criticism of the platform arose as well. Although the platform has surged in users recently, many are still comparing its features and qualities to other voice communications.
“I dislike the sound quality; it sounds cheap compared to other voice communications like Discord,” says Lincoln junior Valentin Wanderkauven. “I can’t stand how difficult it is to configure some of the settings while you need to leave the client in order to fix profile settings, which is questionable because you’re using the client to get access to settings
Some Zoom concerns revolve around its privacy issues. Zoom claims that calls can be encrypted. However, it uses the AES-256 ECB method of encryption which shares the key used to encrypt calls with Zoom’s servers/
Particular classes have also experienced zoombombing, although now there are some precautions to prevent this. Students are required to use their SFUSD email to be able to join a Zoom class meeting.
Lincoln English teacher Sara Falls says, “I've had no Zoom bombing or issues of this sort. The settings with a waiting room and to have students come in muted have made this pretty easy to navigate.
This page was last updated on December 1, 2020