During quarantine we have all gotten used to having virtual classes through Zoom, but it can have its challenges. Every students has three to four classes a day, many being on Zoom but some aren’t. Although not all teachers choose to use Zoom, many do on the daily along with students.

Most students tend to have at least one Zoom class a day, if not more. Nowadays, many people can easily get distracted with technology or can just lose interest in something after a while. 

Teachers tend to use Zoom from one to four hours a day, maybe even more. For some classes, it is fully beneficial to use Zoom since it would be easier to teach the subject.

Mrs. Lianne Davila uses Zoom about four hours a day and uses Zoom for 30 minutes to an hour max per class.

“Its great to be able to work out problems in real time and answer questions to help students understand,” said Mrs. Davila when asked about using Zoom. 

For subjects such as Math and Science, it’s a great way to learn the content and make it much easier on the students to learn. However for subjects that do not require such rigorous learning, it may be better to only do occasional Zoom classes so students can focus more on their independent work. 

For Journalism, Mr. Fernandez only occasionally used Zoom.

“We used Zoom in journalism to conduct brainstorming at first, but since this is a production-based class, it was more efficient to let the students write and work on their own, at their own pace,” said Mr. Fernandez. “Zoom was always an option, but the students never requested it.”

Distance learning may be the future, but it can be more difficult for some more than others. 

“The sudden onset of distance learning during a quarantine is challenging regardless of what apps or technology are in place. Students suddenly being expected to learn math, without a teacher to explain it to them, would be infinitely frustrating. The zoom app definitely facilitates this process,” said Mrs. Davila.

For students, the constant use of Zoom has led to burnout for many. Seniors Sofia Velasco and Isabella Sanchez both admitted many of their teachers would Zoom for the entire block, leaving them frustrated with the lessons because of the clunky nature of the platform.

“There were days were we definitely didn’t need to have a Zoom meeting,” said Sanchez. “And I appreciated when teachers would not use Zoom and assign work like normal.”

Other students have admitted that they like teachers have added extra work during the fourth quarter to justify having Zoom meetings. Seniors noted they were working until the very end, when it’s likely they would have been watching movies and enjoying class events if the school was still on campus.

Senior Andrea Isla Canedo particularly appreciated setups like the one in her English IV Honors class, because “it was exactly what we would’ve done in class and not like a billion more assignments.”

Using Zoom can help students with the adjustment and prepare for online classes in the future, but when we can it would be best to have in-person classes in order to help a student’s knowledge grow more.