My biggest takeaway from my first year of post-secondary education being held virtually back in 2020, was that Zoom is not just a catchy ending to a Mazda commercial… it is an educational platform.

I, like probably most students who navigated higher education via Zoom, have a love/hate relationships with the platform. Zoom is great because it let’s me still be connected with classmates far away and complete work remotely that I would otherwise fall behind in. However, as much as Zoom connects us, it also is incredibly isolating. In fact, logging into the platform today gives me flashbacks to the “Covid Days”.

As an educator, I see value in Zoom; so many resources become available to students when we give them platforms like this. However, I also know it becomes way easier for students to “tune out” and focus on another stimulus with Zoom on in the background.

I found this Tedx talk discussing virtual learning to be interesting, especially given that it was published four years ago:

In conclusion, like everything in life these days, I think there is pros and cons to virtual learning. Neither is right or wrong, it just depends on the context of the learning environment.