During the last year, students were one of the sectors of the population most affected. According to UNESCO, in Mexico alone, the COVID-19 pandemic impacted almost 40 million students at different levels due to school closings; However, technology and the teachers who have been able to take advantage of it have become fundamental elements in reducing the negative effects of the crisis on education.
In this sense, some companies have implemented different updates within their platforms, in order to provide teachers with tools that facilitate and improve the experience within classes. Among the most relevant options are Teams, Microsoft, Classroom, Google, and Zoom.
Although Teams is more focused on remote and collaborative work between people in an office, it has adapted to become one of the most sought after options in educational terms. Among its features for this objective is the 7×7 view in virtual meetings or elements that help teachers establish a better emotional connection.
An example of this are the praise badges, which are prizes by means of which the student’s social skills can be recognized, the emotional vocabulary can grow to generate a healthy environment despite the distance and distinguish the achievement of objectives.
Another update in Teams is Progress in Reading, available starting next school year, which focuses on students learning a new language or educators trying to raise the level of understanding.
In addition, within its platform, courses or tutorials are taught so that teachers have a, which range from how to schedule classes on a calendar, how to share presentations during conferences, how to generate tasks for each member of the group or even how to record the classes to later analyze the performance of their students.
Students, for their part, have other resources focused on promoting their participation in the classroom, as well as tools that divide them into groups in order for them to work together to carry out, collaborate and deliver the same task, in addition to having a database in Teams and Outlook, where they know the task due dates.
Google Classroom, meanwhile, has integrated updates to improve the student experience. An example of this is the possibility of reviewing tasks, opening files or writing without the need for an internet connection, which is aimed at people with low resources, or where connectivity is poor.
In addition, teachers will be able to generate more interactive classes after the incorporation of Adds-on, a tool announced this week that will allow them to integrate various applications in order to complement their classes, such as Adobe Spark or Kahoot !.
Even Meet will have the ability to integrate subtitles in five different languages during their presentations, including Spanish, English and Portuguese, which can be meaningful for those diverse groups.
Another element of the videoconferencing service for teachers is that since April they can silence all students, as well as decide who they want to speak to, thus giving a glimpse of the platform’s approach, focused on giving greater control to the teachers.
Zoom, which gained popularity during the first months of the pandemic, also offers some options that help classes, although it has had the fewest updates on the matter.
The app has different uses, such as holding 40-minute meetings and up to 100 participants (in the free version), where it is possible to share the screen or generate different work rooms, something significant for teamwork.
Likewise, as with the Google and Microsoft solutions, in Zoom there are whiteboards for group collaboration and meetings can be recorded and later shared with the participants of the call.
