You kind of walk over their way and remind them, 'we're doing this right now.,'" He said. "There might be 6 or 8 that really aren't paying attention as closely as you'd like. Blair technology teacher John Kaluta emphasized that participation was necessary for him to understand his students. Some may argue that students have the ability to turn their camera off if they feel uncomfortable with being taped, but teachers often encourage students to turn on their camera to observe student feedback and increase class participation.Īccording to Inside Higher Ed, professors stated that it was disheartening to teach to "a bunch of black boxes with names on them." The article continued to explain that calling on said boxes regularly ensued in awkward silence rather than the participation teachers were used to.
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Although this is a good plan for helping students who miss class, recording Zoom meetings can easily be seen as an invasion of a student's privacy. MCPS has required teachers to record their classes so that students who were absent can watch the class recordings to catch up. As a result, multiple controversies have arisen concerning student privacy since online school began. As students, we release a lot of information to MCPS, including but not limited to: our addresses, our health details, our test scores and more. Privacy provides boundaries and allows us to keep our information safe from outside authorities that could easily utilize it in harmful ways. All of these current technologies used for online school severely reduce student privacy, which should be protected regardless of the circumstances. For example, teachers have access to all student emails on Synergy, including drafts. With the new technology brought in by online learning, a lot of student information that used to be private is now open to teachers and supervisors. "When it comes to school - unless I can completely trust the person or the application - I value my privacy a lot," says Isayas.
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Junior Gelila Isayas views her information as something she does not want shared with people she does not trust, and this may include anyone from government officials to teachers. Many, if not all, students value their privacy immensely, especially when in respect to school. Photo: Students use MyMCPS classroom and Synergy to navigate virtual learning (courtesy of Abby Yokoyama)