Online school in the 2020's by Samantha R.
NOTES: Origins and Context | See Also
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Origins of this content
2022 iteration of LFYT, "post" COVID 19 pandemic by Samantha R.
Contextualization
"Nearly all colleges and universities moved online in spring 2020 because of COVID-19. The shift upended the routines of students, faculty, and staff alike. Many observers have speculated about the future of American higher education after the pandemic in light of the fundamental challenge it poses for institutions that were originally designed to bring large groups of people together for teaching, learning, researching, and socializing."
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In the spring of 2020, online school became a reality for most college students in the USA.

There's a lot that has been said about learning in lockdown during the COVID-19 pandemic. People have had strong opinions about zoom classes and online learning, and those opinions have been pretty mixed. Ultimately, I think there are both good and bad things about zoom classes. Some of the problems/advantages vary depending on what level of education we're talking about. For the purpose of this texteo, we will be focusing on college-level classes.

There is no shortage of articles about why online learning is way worse than in person learning. It can be a distracting and at times ridiculous medium to learn from. That being said, it's not all bad.

There are both good and bad things about college classes on zoom. The good is that people with health concerns (which was all of us, at one point) are still able to access college classes. Classes are held synchronously in real time, which is different and better than previous iterations of online learning before zoom was a thing. Even if a student misses a zoom class for whatever reason, many professors will record the class and post it online for absent students to catch up, or if someone just wants to go over the lecture again. This has, perhaps inadvertently, also given people outside these classes and schools access to part of the college experience, since anyone can search for these recorded classes on YouTube.

Zoom might not be the most conducive to class discussions because of slow internet connections and lack of the more subtle social cues that are available only in person, but at least everyone can see each other's faces. This is one of the more important aspects of  discussion-based learning. Also, both students and teachers alike have found the chat box feature to be useful for sharing relevant links, asking quick questions without taking up class time or derailing the discussion, and as a way for less outgoing students to participate if they are too shy to speak up.