Video Conferencing in Education

      Video conferencing is definitely overused in our current remote learning world, and I know I speak for many educators who have done everything from fully remote, to fully in-person, and everything in-between when I say that we are all longing for connection.  While these are my general thoughts, and while I have many colleagues who are ready to completely turn off their livestreaming equipment and not have to post materials on Google Classroom (and I understand where they are coming from), I may be one of the few educators who is hoping that we won't saying goodbye to aspects of this entirely.

      Some positives (specific to my context) are the lack of travel involved.  As one of seven specialists in a district of 14 schools (this is the only school year we have had seven of us), we have always had to meet in person.  While we love working with each other and genuinely craved these in-person connections since we are the only one who does what we do in our buildings, it was also extremely difficult to find a common time to meet (our district requires us to allot 30 minutes of travel time as well, and 30-minutes is about the length of one session at the elementary level) so the time to travel between schools just for meetings adds up.  This was especially difficult pre-pandemic when our district pushed for PLCs and then didn't have any guidelines for the specialists, so we were told we still to meet once a week.  On top of the travel were the other added logistics of which of us was going to host all of us (central location) and does that school have a feasible sized room (we often end up teaching in storage closets/former storage closets--this is not an exaggeration.  I personally taught in book rooms and a storage space that connected to two small classrooms.  I currently teach in a storage closet beyond the reach of our school's WiFi).  One year, a supervisor made an aside that we could meet via video conference, and I was the only one who was on board--two years later and this is our norm.  At the start of school closures in March 2020, for the first time we held a meeting with all of us and our instructional assistants--it was refreshing.  I had never met any of the other instructional assistants before.  We all agreed that one takeaway from our current remote learning world is to incorporate having our meetings virtually moving forward.  

      Another positive (also has to do with the lack of need to travel aspect) is the ability to meet with students and parents virtually.  While I would much rather meet with students in person, I hope that our district will still allow specialists to meet with students virtually moving forward.  Ever since returning to work from maternity leave, I have had to change my schedule with students many times every time we increase our in-person learning days (the virtual schedule is different from the in-person schedule, and I have two schools to account for).  As a result of the constant schedule changes, (and following a new one yet again this week), I now have 2 sessions in my schedule unaccounted for.  I am simply unable to fill those time slots at the school that I am in on those days because the schedule just doesn't allow for it, or for the students who I could see, they don't actually need me to see them during that time because they are higher proficiency level students.  The only solution that I see is to see students from the other school virtually during that time.  I know it is not ideal, but I have students with greater needs in my other building who could benefit from those times.

      Meeting with parents has been met with much greater success than other years when it is difficult to have meetings with them in-person.  There is a certain comfort level that parents have at home, especially in my context when it can be extremely overwhelming for parents to attend a meeting (held in a language they are oftentimes not fluent in), with so many different teachers/school personnel, in a school.  I also do know that culturally, some families don't have a hands-on approach to education, so that also inhibits them from attending in-person school meetings, so I have seen an overall increase in reception from parents to meeting, and I do believe that it is because we are meeting virtually.

      A general negative that I have with video conferencing is the overuse of it.  I liked that our district's virtual learning schedule included synchronous and asynchronous times, and breaks.  I know that no schedule is perfect, but when some of my nieces and nephews were attending school virtually, and I had heard that they were not getting any breaks at all--well it is not a surprise that the teachers are burnt out and the students are disengaged!  Other negatives (one that I previously alluded to) are things beyond our control that we are dependent on for video conferencing to work, such as reliable Internet connectivity (both for the educator and the student).  The lags in video/audio (sometimes both) add frustration and can make sessions with students unproductive--I cannot imagine what this would be like for students learning from home.

      I have seen my colleagues make the best out of the video conferencing platforms to use the time to meet with students in small groups or put students in breakout rooms that just isn't possible in-person learning due to space restrictions and health and safety guidelines, as well as having some students in person and some virtual.  This has been used at length in the elementary schools when we still had our one virtual learning day.  The use of the breakout rooms in both Zoom and Google Meet was something that helped.  Our schools also set the foundation at the beginning of the school year what the expectations were for virtual learning, and so I deo believe that these reminders have helped with interactivity as well.

      Overall, while I would rather teach all of my students in one platform, I believe Zoom and Google Meet really should just be used as tools and not the basis from which our teaching and learning should come.  At the same time, I cannot dismiss the convenience of being able to hold meetings with video conferencing and not have to account for additional travel time--which results in less time with students--and the greater ease with which to schedule meetings with colleagues, even if we are all in the same district.