Would you have been a good *Zoom* student?

Certainly not! To a great extent I am involved with two charities and we regularly hold Zoom meetings and training sessions........and I detest them! Many of the attendees have little concept of "wait your turn to speak" or "raise a hand if you want to contribute to the meeting" and all too often it is total chaos! I find the screen time tedious too.

I really do not envy my GC having to sit through them every day, fortunately they are all sensible kids who thrive on learning and do put the work in themselves!

I was bored and prone to chatter at school. It was all a bit too basic for me.

I developed into a wayward, party girl teenager too. Still, I succeeded, somehow. I always read a lot. At college I did minimal work and enjoyed myself.

I'd be utterly useless at remote learning. Where's the motivation, the competition and camaraderie?

Childhood's the worst time to study, really. I only settled down to detailed work in my forties, when I did my teaching degree. Still, I needed my group of fellow students to bounce ideas off - and work alongside.

I've used online and remote work with students. Yes, they're like ducks to water with the technology and interaction - as they've grown up with it.

Still, it's a physically solitary, less involved/interactive, less rewarding experience than being in a classroom.

It's just impossible to give the instant feedback and individual attention that's so important. Individual tutorials are very time-consuming.

Learning online and at a distance is not new. The OU have been teaching adults that way for over 50 years and from about 2012 the teaching has gradually switched to being totally online with no face to face tutorials. I really missed the buzz of teaching face to face but on the other hand, all the group turned up. I have also been thinking this week of those films we were shown in Primary school back in the 50s of children in the Australian outback being taught by teachers over the radio.

I would have been excellent being an introvert! Never been bothered by ‘friends’ and all that goes with it. That’s one of the reasons why I’ve adapted to the lockdown better than others.

Re the OU, the motivation of adults learning at a distance will usually be - ahem - just a bit better than children being homeschooled, @Humbertbear, especially when they’ve paid for their courses.
I have to confess that even when there were face to face OU tutorials, I hardly ever attended them - except always the first, after which it would depend on whether I took to the tutor.

I dare say I must be exceptionally picky, but there was only one course of the many, where I attended every tutorial. That tutor was brilliant.

I was atrocious at school and I would be atrocious online. Zero concentration.

I’d be rubbish at Zoom lessons. I teach via Zoom and run Rainbows via Zoom too. I’ve done OU courses and more recently FutureLearn ones. I find I don’t retain the knowledge as much. I need people. I want/need to do a course to help with my self esteem after too many years working in education and the constant criticism - but I don’t want to do it remotely!

My dh thoroughly enjoys his French conversation group which he set up on Zoom, after the face to face classes had to stop.

GagaJo

I was atrocious at school and I would be atrocious online. Zero concentration.

Funny how many “naughty” schoolchildren end up as teachers!. By today’s standards of course I wasn’t bad but I’ve still got a couple of reports about my at A level displaying no interest etc in subjects I later taught ! Me? Or the teachers ?
I’d certainly have been very easily distracted by the possibilities offered by Snapchat Facebook etc.....

Yes Lucca. I think it is part of the reason we are OK teachers. We know how they feel. Certainly in the UK I usually have a popular following amongst the naughtier students!

Witzend

My dh thoroughly enjoys his French conversation group which he set up on Zoom, after the face to face classes had to stop.

I admire that. I gave up teaching my adults Italian class as I didn’t fancy zoom lessons and now I feel a bit pathetic !

Hmmm. Gransnet zoom teaching ?

I know the original post was asking if we would be good students but actually we probably would have a better chance if IT had been an integral part of our childhoods. Even just one generation on the experience of "online" is different and my grandchildren are so familiar with it that there's no comparison.

I think it would depend on the teacher and subject, the same as school. I was a 'back of the class and make yourself as small as possible' student most of the time after the age of 11, and I think I would be on Zoom too.

Didn't do me any harm, had two really interesting careers but did have a bit of catching up to do.

I don't think I would have been any good at it as a pupil. I was another who was very disengaged at school, so the 21st century equivalent of the 14 year old me would probably be playing on my phone under the desk with earbuds hidden under my hair so I could listen to music. On the other hand, there would be no peer pressure to mess about, which was a big problem in the school I went to. Maybe without that I would have renewed the interest I had in primary school but was knocked out of me at 11. I think I might have enjoyed at least a few subjects without that pressure.

As a student, I would probably have been fine with Zoom. I loved my subject, and wanted to learn more about it, so would have done the advance reading and so on, and come to the classes ready to discuss things. I was slightly mature (23 in my first year), and maybe that made a difference - I was certainly in a better frame of mind as a student than I was as a school pupil.

I did an MA when working full time with two young children, however, and whilst that was very hard work, it would have been a lot more so on Zoom, particularly if I had been home-schooling and working from home. I don't know how people manage to find the headspace and an uninterrupted hour or two to concentrate on a Zoom class with children in the house, never mind trying to co-ordinate it all when working from home too, and I think that this group of students is at a great disadvantage.