Meet, Zoom and Online Classes

When the lockdown was announced a year and a half ago (Yeah, it has been that long), I thought we would be back soon. But that never was to be..... However, one thing did happen.... Google Meet, Zoom and Office. 

When I came back from IIT, we were initially given a two-week break, as we thought the crisis would be contained (Even that didn't happen). After that, the Institute sent circulars advising the professors (or profs as the students call them) to start "online" classes. I dreaded that the profs would be sending some reading material, ask us to read it and write our exams (or assignments as they turned out to be). But I never thought a new component would enter my academic life.... Google Meet and Zoom.

In the first week of April, when the classes resumed, profs started sending us these Meet links and were told to login using the institute email id given to us.  I attended my first online class with my video on, sitting from the dining table and the WiFi modem near the TV set. When I went in, I was expecting to see a few faces. But all I saw was letters: M, N, A, D..... Not one person's face!!! 

This was the meeting screen I stared at in most classes

Only the profs kept their webcam on, mainly because the internet connection in IIT is far greater than the ones we have at home.

Some profs didn't even take classes.... They just sent recorded lectures and audio recordings and told us to watch recordings of classes they had taken in the past on YouTube. 

The introduction to Zoom was even more dramatic. Our course instructor for Excel was teaching us through Meet. But the lag of the screen sharing annoyed him, and he said:

"Let's switch to Zoom. Google Meet doesn't seem to work".

I was already having trouble understanding how Meet works, and now he's telling me to switch to another platform??!! Aaarrrggghh!!! But I had to change my opinion. Zoom was smoother than Meet, and I got to know about a new meeting platform. 

Then there was the online exam. Thankfully, online exams were conducted only for the Excel course; all others were reduced to assignments to be sent over email. Thus the second semester ended with a thud. 

Come the third sem, and the situation got even worse. All profs got a hang of how Meet and Zoom work and were starting to take live classes. Now even the profs started turning their webcams off, possibly because the students themselves had turned it off. Classes on Meet and Zoom, term papers in Word, presentations in PowerPoint became the norm... 

In the third sem, I had a course on International Relations, and the webcam had to be turned on for the viva. When my turn came, I turned the webcam on. Two minutes into the viva, I saw the message, " You lost your connection. Trying to reconnect". 

Are you for real, right now??!!!

Later the connection came back, and the prof asked me to turn the webcam off so that I won't get cut off again. 

Come the fourth sem, and still, nothing changed. The only things that have changed are how I dress for class, where I sit for class, and where and how I attend classes. I learned two sets of things: bandwidth, share screen, breakout rooms and that what I learned about computer manners in class 1 and 2 are true: spending too much time in front of the computer is not good and causes backache and red eyes!!!!!