Zoom is Everywhere!

As of today, COVID-19 has wreaked havoc among many countries’ healthcare systems, pushing hospitals all around the world to their limit. Many schools, such as our own, have moved to online learning as well, due to the pandemic.

Zoom, an app created by Zoom Video Communications, has seemingly come out of nowhere, beaten competition from mega-companies such as Microsoft and Google, and has become the most popular video calling application.

In an interview with Business Insider, CEO Eric Yuan said that “[they] have seen a large increase in the number of free users, meeting minutes and new video use cases.” It has even become the second most downloaded app on the Apple store, with TikTok right above it.

So what advantages does Zoom hold over other video calling applications such as Microsoft Teams?

Rahul S., a recent alumnus of AISG who has moved to Orlando, uses Zoom daily to communicate with his new classmates and teachers. He comments on his experience with Zoom: “unfortunately, because of the unpredicted spread of Coronavirus, I have entered my school basically through the internet. However, I have made some new friends, made acquaintance with some teachers. Zoom is relatively lag-free and user-friendly, so I think it has helped in that regard, unlike Skype, which we tried prior.”

Zoom has recently faced much backlash from the education community because of security and privacy issues. They have since added passwords to calls and are in the process of trying to improve security measures.

Some teachers in AISG have also started to implement Zoom into their online classes. Mr. Tilly, a teacher in the science department, about using Zoom for virtual calls. He said he was introduced to the application through faculty meetings. They had done a meeting before on Microsoft Teams but later decided to switch to Zoom due to convenience and because “the rest of the world was [using] Zoom.”

When asked about why he chose the program over other video calling software, Mr. Tilly said that “[Zoom] isn’t a really amazing program,” but he did like the “layout a little bit more,” as well as the whiteboard function. “On teams, when I would use the whiteboard it would lag… so [Zoom] has been better for that,” he commented.

Zoom does seem to have fewer network errors than its competitors – in my classes, it does seem to provide higher video quality than Teams. Mr. Tilly added, “This is an opportunity for me to learn a new program everyone is using as well.”

With Zoom’s prevalence in the online classrooms of the world, teachers learning how to use the program can definitely benefit student’s learning in the long term; they will have another way to seek guidance.

It may be for now a “quick way to communicate with kids,” as Mr. Tilly puts it, but who knows? Maybe Zoom will stick around in teachers’ teaching arsenals even after the pandemic!