UTSoC’s Director of Publications Alex Turner-Cohen reckons online learning can be fun, as long as you follow one important rule. Hint: It all depends on you.
Members of the UTS Law Student Society meet online
Every profession has had to adapt to this strange new world we find ourselves in, faced with a pandemic on one hand and social isolation on the other. And the university education system is no exception. Classes have pivoted to online settings. The days of talking to a tutor face-to-face feel like a lifetime ago.
I’ll admit, I wasn’t keen on the idea of online learning at first. How could university be the same as it was before?
I was right. Online learning is not the same. But that doesn’t mean it’s bad — it’s just different.
Tutors and lecturers are trying their hardest to make the virtual classroom come to life. Even though you might be hundreds, sometimes even thousands of kilometres away from your tutor, it’s easy to forget that there’s a global pandemic. As long as you don’t have any internet issues, most of the time, the difference is negligible between an online class and the real deal.
Essentially, online learning can be fun. If you let it. From what I’ve observed after a semester of classes, here’s how.
The joys of technology
Zoom has become the new god, and us university students are now its devout worshippers.
Like any technology, it has a number of features which are ideal for online learning. And tutors are making the most of it.
First of all: Break out rooms. With a simple click of a button, tutors can break the class up into different groups to engender discussions. With this feature, it feels just like any normal tutorial — except for the fact I haven’t had to leave my bed.
Breakout rooms aren’t the only godly feature of the video calling platform — it also has a bunch of other interactive options including polls and an online chat. The latter comes in handy whenever you want to access a link and don’t want to waste time searching for it in your inbox or on Canvas. Tutors can send it quickly through the chatbox.
Share Screen is one of my favourites. If you need help or want to present to the class, you can just share your screen with the tutor and the rest of the students. (Although you will need to ask your tutor to enable this function in order for it to work.)
The mute feature is also a dream come true. It means you can keep your full attention on whoever’s speaking, without having any annoying background noise. Maybe it’s not ideal if you wanted to make friends in the tutorial, but it’s the perfect environment for learning.
Last but not least: Good ol’ technology also makes it super easy for you to get ahold of your tutor. It’s never been easier to arrange one-on-one sessions. If you need help, they really can’t avoid you now.
Zoom really is quite amazing when you think about it.
For instance, I’ve just finished a group assignment where I was the only in my team from Australia - the rest were international or exchange students who had returned home. So despite I and my group members being in five different countries across the world, we were able to chat in real time and even hand our assignment in without any hitches. What a time to be alive!
Everyone is more real with each other
Life in lockdown has provided students and their tutors with a rare opportunity to be real with each other.
By this, I mean that we all get a glimpse into each other’s lives, that would otherwise have remained forever hidden. As soon as we turn on Zoom’s video feature, we get a window into everyone’s lives. We can see the posters on the walls of other students’ rooms (I will admit I have some embarrassing pictures of Heath Ledger on my wall), we can see how neat (or messy) their homes are. Sometimes we even see a family member/roommate/partner walk past or talk to them. Most of the time I’d never let my friends near my mum!
If we’re super lucky, we might even get to see someone’s pet on the other side of the screen. And if you’re anything like me, you’re wearing pyjamas to your tutes and you don’t wear makeup anymore, because the picture quality is too grainy for people to notice anyway. The makeup is a good metaphor for this whole situation. We’ve taken off the foundation and realised that everyone is pretty much the same.
I’ve had one tutor who had to leave the class for five minutes because her cat was meowing a lot. It might not be much, but all these things do a lot to humanise your peers and tutors. Honestly, it’s quite refreshing. It also helps build rapport with your class, which in turn makes it easier and more enjoyable to learn.
Tutors also recognise that people in their classes might be struggling. So one of my tutors took matters into her own hands, using class as an opportunity to check in on everyone. Instead of calling the roll, she made us all say how we were coping during lockdown. Everyone spoke candidly about their situations — including the tutor.
It was nice to find out everyone was in the same boat. Even if some of us are on different sides of the world.
Pyjamas and sleep-ins
Let’s not forget one more added bonus of online learning. The convenience.
Gone are the days where you had to set your alarm for ridiculously early in the morning to make it in time for class (especially if you lived outside of Sydney and had to make that 9.am lecture). Now, we simply have to roll out of bed, switch on our laptops and we’re good to go.
I don’t need to go through the struggle of choosing what to wear and trying to remember if my classmates had already seen me in that outfit. Now, I can just wear whatever is comfortable — be that fluffy socks or my night gown.
No matter which way you spin it, learning from home is pretty damn convenient. Especially if you’re an international student — you don’t even need to leave your family behind!
You
Tutors are trying their hardest, but they need your help. At the end of the day, an engaging class all depends on you. You only get out of something as much as you give — though it pains me to use that cliche.
If you show up, engage in class discussions, maybe even crack the odd joke or two, online learning will be a blast.
Remember, there’s nothing worse than when a tutor asks a question and no-one answers. The awkward silence is so thick in the air you can almost smell it. So be that person who answers. For the sake of the tutors, if not for your own.