Online video-conferencing useful way to keep classes connected

Many teachers are using Zoom to still meet and speak with their classes.

Photographer: Photo pulled from Wikipedia Commons

Many teachers are using Zoom to still meet and speak with their classes.

Kochia Krum, Staff Reporter

During this time of online school teachers are trying to communicate to their students face to face, many teachers are using the video app zoom. 

Zoom is a video communication app that allows teachers and students to communicate face to face. The Zoom video conference app works for Android, iOS, PC and Mac. Zoom can have up to 1,000 users participate in a single Zoom video call, and 49 videos can appear on the screen at once. Teachers have the ability to create a meeting and can send out the meeting ID or just send out a link, this makes it super easy for students to excess. 

Teachers are using zoom just to take attendance or even teach a lesson. Zoom has video and a mic, both of these can be turned on or off. Teachers are finding it easy to teach a lesson with their students with both these options. There is also a chat option on zoom which allows teachers to leave links and more information. 

Zoom is free to sign up and have a meeting. The only thing needed is an email. If they don’t have an account with zoom it only allows 40 minutes on a video. But Zoom has made it so schools can have more than 40-minute meetings.

The New York City Department of Education recently told teachers to stop using Zoom because of security issues, such as people going into meetings they are not a part of. This however can also be easily fixed by adding a meeting password and the waiting room feature so the person who started the meeting can see who tries to enter before starting the meeting. 

Zoom is a safe and great way to allow teachers and students to connect face to face. Mrs. Osgard is a biology teacher who uses it for her class and often reads articles or shows them videos. She does this to continue teaching biology during this time. Many other Reno high teachers are doing this too and not only are schools but friend groups are also meeting this way too.