Video Conferencing in Education - An Addition, Alternative, or the Future of Education?
I think using video-conferencing in education is something that is here to stay. It used to be an addition to lessons to increase engagement in lessons, and it can be an alternative for teachers who need to be away from the class, but it is certainly in the future of education, now that the world has been well-acquainted with the use of video-conferencing. It is hard to go back to the times where teachers are only met in person, in school, and only contacted via email, or spoken to in person. Technology affordances have now allowed a plethora of ways for teachers to engage with their students and their parents. Regardless of the manner in which teachers are meeting with their students, this is the real reason for students coming to school daily, whether online or in person - it is to exchange ideas, build rapport, and to learn from one another in a community of people.
Video conferencing or pre-recorded videos of teachers lecturing could be a possibility for teachers who may have to travel to attend important conferences, meetings, or accreditation visits, which could take them away from their class for a brief moment.
The experience of using video-conferencing during the pandemic to cope with home-based or online learning has changed many teaching and learning practices. Although my students and I get to meet face to face now, the presence of video-conferencing as a tool makes it possible for us to use it in many ways. For example, to meet with parents who are out of country, video conferencing for students who need to catch up on work (as in a tutoring situation) either because they had been ill and away from school, or because they are English language learners (ELL) and would benefit from more contact time with the homeroom or ELL teacher. ELL teachers may also provide more contact time and accountability by checking-in with students over summer breaks, so that they do not revert to using their home language (which is typically not English), and to move backwards on all the gains in English that they made during the academic year.
I imagine that parents themselves use video-conferencing a lot to manage their work from home (WFH) arrangements. Since “remote work and virtual meetings are likely to continue”, even though they may be carried out with less intensity as compared to during the pandemic (McKinsey, 2023), I think video-conferencing or some form of that could continue in education of the future.
I personally used video-conferencing on a daily basis for a large part of the 2019/2020 academic year. It allowed my students who were stuck in their homelands to continue learning online. Even when most of the students were already back on campus, we had a few students who had to face strict immigration restrictions and they were not allowed to travel back to their school. I finally met my student again in person for the last six months of 2020 and we enjoyed meeting face to face and learning together.
Later, as I transitioned to a new country, I was fortunate enough to be teaching in a school that did not close throughout the pandemic. Besides a two-month lockdown in the year 2020, Singapore never went into another lockdown situation where people were restricted from leaving their homes (Wong, 2021). My students and I met a lot on Google Meet, and sometimes on Zoom. Although video conferencing can be useful to provide a sense of community, support for students who need more help learning from home, it can be very tiring to be staring at a screen for all of school. Thus, when I was teaching online, I made sure to keep them on a schedule and only met in the mornings, and once in the day for an important lesson, and we checked-in again at the end of the day for times of reflection.
As a teacher teaching online, and providing support to students who were learning from home, it was interesting to note that most activities that I had planned allowed students to learn independently. However, students who needed help much appreciated the option of being in the same virtual classroom on Google Meet to ask questions whenever they needed. At set times in the day, the virtual classroom would be open, and students could come into the classroom to ask questions or just to be with me. Providing video conferencing options allowed students with different learning styles and personalities to thrive.
There may be moments where students check out and it's hard to tell if they are engaged during a video conference call. However, there are many strategies for the online teacher to circumvent that situation. Call it online classroom management. Just to name a few - I call on different students from time to time, get students to collaborate on tasks on Google Slides, thereby limiting the teacher talk, brainstorm on Padlet, and use precious video conferencing moments to check in, share, reflect, and encourage one another even as we spent another day of learning online.
Finally, although video conferencing is a great tool, as mentioned above, there are many other ways that teachers can make the lessons interactive, with or without the use of other tools online. Discussion boards, forums, blogs, and Google Classroom stream can also provide students with a sense of community asynchronously. There are also many other tools to help students make their thinking visible. Ultimately, it is the interaction between the teacher, students, and learning resources that allows students to construct their knowledge and learn from the learning experiences. The teacher will still need to have a good knowledge of his/her students and how they learn in order to ensure that the learning experience is collaborative, engaging, interactive, and meaningful for them.
References
McKinsey (2023, January 23) What is the future of work? McKinsey & Company. https://www.mckinsey.com/featured-insights/mckinsey-explainers/what-is-the-future-of-work.
Wong, T. (2021). Singapore: What's it like in the best place to live during Covid? BBC News. https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-56939261.
I agree with you that once you introduce a new technology it is hard to go back to the way things were before, and I think that is the case of video conferencing. That said though, I do not think we will stick to it as the main form of communication and teaching as we did during the pandemic. Too much research shows that it is not the most effective way for teaching and learning for the majority of the population. There are great ways we can use video conferencing, such as for a student who is out sick, an emergency snow day situation, or a meeting with other teachers not in our building. I was thankful for the use of video conferencing during the pandemic and it allowed me to continue teaching piano lessons and teach ESL. It was great to hear about your experience with the benefits and disadvantages of video conferencing!
ReplyDeleteI was happy to hear how successful you were during the pandemic, especially with your students that were unable to leave their home country. Your intent to create community seemed effortless with the tools you utilized. The tools you mentioned like google classroom, google meet, and zoom, gave you important ways to stay connected. Your ideas about collaborating on padlet and google slides offered important interaction between students. Your final thoughts about knowing your students and important interaction between teacher, student and resources describes where video-conferencing is lacking. That face to face connection for assessing the student is still the primary tool a teacher uses to tailor materials used for teaching and to also build relationships. One study called it "soft skills" a teacher uses such as showing kindness, compassion and caring, that contribute to the student's academic achievement and interestingly contributes to better teaching.
ReplyDeletehttps://education.missouri.edu/2022/03/positive-teacher-student-relationships-lead-to-better-teaching/
Hi Angel,
ReplyDeleteIt sounds like some of the ways you used videoconferencing actually saved your students time. Instead of all trying to work on an activity together, students were able to work at their own pace and come to you with any questions. Though collaborating is an important aspect of learning, using videoconferencing in this way can build independence and allow the work to become individualized as students work at whatever pace they need to.