Screen sharing only made the list by way of the unnecessary yet unwavering commentary that goes along with it. A dramatic slam of your laptop screen signifies the ending of one class and beginning of a snack break. Finally, there’s the familiar sigh of relief and stretch of your contorted body that’s been hunched over for too long. Then there’s the actual selection of the Leave Meeting button that inevitably results in a painfully uncomfortable two-second delay during which you must avoid eye contact at all costs. For some, this means an unmuted “thank you” and a 360° hand rotation, for others––a smile and a Queen Elizabeth-esque swivel of the wrist should do. The following three steps make up the essential yet cringey sequence of ending class that we all relate to:įirst, there’s the wave. After a long live session, when all the last-minute questions and final sidetracked thoughts have been said and done, your professor finally bids you farewell. Like many of the day-to-day Zoom nuances, this is more of an awkward scenario than a true con. A general rule of thumb here is to not type anything out that you wouldn’t want everyone to see… or just text your friends instead. Typing too fast, having shaky fingers, or basic negligence can lead to you sending an intentional note to an unintended audience. There’s a little tiny pulldown bar that displays in the chatbox giving you the option to send your message to everyone or just certain people. The chatbox feature is a wonderful tool for a multitude of reasons: it allows you to participate if you don’t feel comfortable speaking up, hyperlinks to relevant material are a mere click away, and emojis let you express your feelings in a way words never could! While keyboard communication can be a major plus in the classroom, it brings about a whole new batch of risk as well. Inevitably, the dialogue shifts to everything else going on in the world: weather, politics, Zoom fatigue, and the infamous “do you guys know what we’re doing in this class?” which is always a top-notch one liner for your professor to silently pop in and hear. Most often, these little chunks of group work are meant to be spent discussing prior readings, but you almost always finish that conversation in half of the allotted time. Half the time you actually do know exactly what you’re supposed to be doing, but something about that blissfully dumb intro provides a bonding icebreaker for you and your ten-minute confidantes. “Uhhhh, do you guys know what we’re supposed to be doing?” is easily the most common opening line for breakout groups of all studies. Breakout groups, especially the one-on-ones. All you have to do is put your furry friend on camera and magically you go from being a noisy disruptor to the host of an adorable guest appearance in no time.ģ. Dog howls, cat meows and pretty much anything that has to do with a pet is an easy recovery. The good news is, most of the time it leads to harmless interruptions. Whether you’re filming a Tik Tok, bad mouthing someone on a Zoom call to another in the room, secretly watching TV, or perhaps having a flatulent reaction to that burrito you ate for lunch––it’s tough to come back from a forgotten click of your mute button. It’s a devastating rite of passage that’s plagued conference-call users for years. This one has potential to be even worse than its counterpart. The aftermath can go one of two ways: You apologetically repeat yourself at a nonsensical speed, or you lose the original thought entirely and resort to the ol’ “I forgot what I was gonna say––it wasn’t important.” And then there’s the hesitant “I think you’re on mute” that comes from a fellow student who simply couldn’t bear to watch your mime act any longer. After about fifteen seconds of impeccable oration, you glance at the screen to find not a classroom full of mesmerized peers as you’d expected, but rather a dozen faces staring at you in confusion. The handcrafted words that you practiced a minute ago begin to flow from your mouth with ease. You raise your hand and by some grace of pure luck your professor notices and calls on you to answer. You formulate a coherent talking point in your head, maybe you even go so far as to quickly type it out before finally mustering the courage to speak up. Your professor asks a question that you surprisingly know the answer to. We’ve all fallen victim to this at least a half dozen times by now. I decided to make a comprehensive list of all the glorious fails and cumbrous trials to change that. Between guest cat appearances, frozen computer screens, and painfully awkward virtual farewells, there’s a lot that goes unsaid amidst this relatable remote learning process. We’ve had some good times, some bad times and we’ve certainly become experts on bedridden camera angles. This piece was featured on The Simmons Voice’s and Simmons Radio: The Shark’s podcast “Welcome Home.” Click here to listen.
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