My goodness, it has been too long. I hope you are doing well, reader. I’m in the home stretch of this crazy school year and have been in a reflective mood lately. Top of mind at this moment is Zoom’s chat feature. Let me explain.
It took a few weeks, but I think I fell into a nice rhythm using Zoom this year. I love both the chat and breakout room features. The chat feature allows me to check in with students without anyone else knowing. Conversely, students can ask a question (or many) without fear of “looking dumb” or being that person who asks something which was already answered.
I tried leaving it up to students whether they wanted to send a comment or question directly to me or to the whole class, but this did not work. Students would sometimes ask a private question publicly or give an answer to the whole class followed by a, “Oops, I meant to send that only to you, Ms. Vila.” I decided to change my Zoom settings so students can only direct message me. It’s not ideal, but I think it’s working pretty well. I often say, “Question in the chat…” and then proceed to state the question and, if needed, answer the question or allow others to help answer it. Students have mentioned that they like this method.
As of this writing, the plan is for all students to be back in the classroom next year. If that’s the case, how do I replicate the Zoom chat feature in school? If each student has a device, I suppose we can all log into a Zoom call… but would that work alright if we are all in the same room and I’m moving about? What if my district is not able to maintain the one-to-one Chromebook pairing that went on this year? These are questions I will try to answer this summer.