TASK 5 - "Zoom".

Hello! I am Marina and I am going to evaluate Zoom, a well-known tool that we use almost every day. There are strengths and weaknesses in this eLearning tool, and I am going to show them to you.

Zoom is a tool that most students use, it is a platform for video and audio conferencing, meetings, chat, etc.

Firstly, we are going to talk about the functionality. This tool works well when it comes to scale, since you have flexibility to create subgroups for the meetings. Also, it is easy to use, the use of this tool is intuitive, and really easy; and we can say that there are facilities such as instructors to help you understand something if you don’t, so there is help availability. In addition, as we said before, this app allows you to communicate through audio, video or chat; in fact, this is its main purpose. As we can see, the functionality of this tool works well, there are no concerns.

Next, we are going to evaluate the accessibility. This tool also works well in this topic, since the guidelines are clear, it has the capacity to address the needs of the users, and also it is a totally free tool, you don’t have to pay. However, if we talk about required equipment, we may find some difficulties if one user needs a new camera or microphone, due to the fact that we need those tools for the app to work properly.

If we examine the technical part, this tool can be fully integrated into a Learning Management System, and users can use it with any standard, either up-to-date operating system or browser. Beside this, if you use this tool you don’t need to download any additional extensions, it is enough with downloading the app.

Let’s talk now about the mobile design of the tool. The accessibility with the mobile phone exists, many people use Zoom only with their phone. Nevertheless, there are some features that can’t be used in the mobile phone, since this app is made specifically for computer users. Despite this, the main features are incorporated in phones, so we can call without any problem. Also, another bad thing is the fact that the app can’t be used in an offline mode, you need a connection with the Internet to be able to connect with other people. To conclude this part, we can say that it doesn’t work as well as expected in this topic.

Talking about Data Protection and Privacy, this tool requires users data in order to create an account, so the data of the user is collected and shared, but this data has copyright and the user owns it. Also, users can export content or data from the app, such as video conferencing tapes.

In the “social presence” part of Zoom, we can say that this tool has the capacity to support a community of learning through both asynchronous and synchronous lessons, since you can either join a class or watch a video of the class if it was recorded. A weakness of the tool is that instructors cannot control learner anonymity, but the tool provides some solution for holding learners accountable for their actions. And, as we said before, this tool is well-known, so everyone can use it safely since many people are familiar with Zoom.

Talking about the teaching presence, teachers can use some features that allow them to teach and be differentiated from the learners (they can accept whoever they want to in the conferences, they can kick people out if they want, etc.). The tool can be customized when we talk about the freedom that teachers have to use it for whatever they want to show or teach. Teachers can monitor learners’ performance on a variety of responsive measures too. So we can say that the teaching presence works perfectly.

To conclude, we are going to examine the cognitive presence. This tool enhances engagement in targeted cognitive task(s) that were once overly complex or inconceivable through other means, this means that activities that were difficult to develop are now easier to be done with Zoom, for example group projects, or trying to understand a subject with the help of other people. Also, this tool facilitates ways of understanding tasks, be better at some skills, and exercise higher order thinking skills (by talking to the instructor or to other students, learners improve a lot of things of themselves, Zoom is basically created to communicate new information and knowledge). Through this tool, it is not possible to give formative feedback (there is no way to track improvement through the app), yet teachers can use Zoom to evaluate and give feedback by writing down the track of the learners. In this ambit, it is true that the tool needs to add a way of giving feedback and tracking the path of learners, for a better cognitive presence.

In conclusion, we can see that Zoom is one of the best online tools to use for learning and teaching, but also for just talking or chatting. It should add some more features, improve the mobile version, let teachers have more control over students track, and add a way of feedback so the tool will be more appropriate for a learning experience. But, besides the bad part, most of the app is perfect for communicating with other people.