I’m not sure that today’s viewing experience was stellar. Let’s think out loud about options for watching the remaining movies.
- Stick with Zoom, but make sure that we turn off our own cameras. If there are more than a few viewers, and those viewers have their PC cams on, it compromises the streaming. Similarly, we can try to refrain from chatting during screenings.
- Try another platform like Discord.
- I can record films on Zoom, post the recordings, and let you watch the films on your own time. We would still have class discussions at least twice a week, but this would mitigate buffering issues.
- An option I haven’t fully considered yet.
Your thoughts?
I think sticking with Zoom and turning off our cameras will work well.
Get a copy of the film to the zoom kids and have them watch if during the class period while in class students watch it on the big screen.
I would be perfectly fine with watching it on my time or with watching it on zoom with everyone’s camera off. I would prefer to watch in class though for the community aspect.
I think that option 3 would be the best choice. The live stream of the movie for today’s class was a little hectic and hard to follow. I think that prerecorded films would be easier to view and there would be less buffering.
I’d rather try something like discord because it works better with screensharing and more people, and also allows for the chat to not interrupt the film (like with the thing that pops up in the top bar every time zoom is used to screenshare).
I liked watching it in class. Watching films on my own time would result in me watching them at 11:59 (cough cough like 3 am). But I’m a procrastinator. And I don’t understand Discord. But if that’s what we move to, then I guess I can figure it out!
Personally, I didn’t have any problems with today’s method. If turning off our videos and stopping chats would help then that sounds great. I don’t know the severity of the problem for others, so I don’t know what type of action would be necessary to solve those problems. If the video is horribly laggy for others, then I doubt if simply turning off videos and stopping the chat would make a big enough impact. I also have no issues with switching platform or moving to an asynchronous format for watching the movies. I think watching the movies on our own time would give the benefit of being able to watch when we are fully awake since I know I’m not all the way there mentally until around noon. On the flip side of this, I know I might be tempted to procrastinate watching the movie or not watch it at all (I would never actually do this of course) if I was supposed to watch it on my own time. Personally, I don’t really have a preference among any of the options.
As a junior who is on campus, I feel like the decision should be left up to those who are on zoom. The students in the classroom have great video and sound quality as opposed to the seniors and virtual juniors who have a compromised viewing experience. Any option would work for me, but I would prefer not to have to watch the movies on my own time as American Literature involves a lot of reading and thus takes up study hours.
I’d like to give discord a shot because its a platform that can offer a better stream quality and possibly better audio quality for the screenshare. The discussion during the movie would be a lot more easy on students and can be less of a distraction to the movie-watchers. It would also allow you to be able to have both systems up and running to use one for speaking and one for the screenshare. We can always fiddle around with both Zoom and Discord to see which works better for the virtual students.
For the kids doing in person, the Zoom screen sharing worked well. I do believe that the kids at home on Zoom should have a personal copy due to possible lag. For me, discord is a bit confusing but it’s not something I’m not willing to learn how to maneuver. I strongly feel as if this decision should be left to the kids doing virtual school.
I think giving a copy of the film (yet still watching the film in class) to the students would work great. Due to the fact that everyone has lagging issues over zoom, the canvas movie uploads would help everyone with the situation at hand 🙂
I am really down for whatever!
I didn’t have an issue with our current method of film watching. I think if we all turned our cameras off, it would allow the film to be higher quality (although it already seemed fine from my perspective). However, if most students prefer to watch the assigned films outside of class, I don’t have an issue with that either. Whatever works for everyone else works for me too!
Sticking with Zoom sounds best to me. It is simple for students who are virtual to view the movies. If we were to switch to Discord and such, more challenges will exist. Also, watching the film together as a class via Zoom ensures each student actually watches the film. With that being said, I prefer to continue watching films through Zoom, but I do understand other students encounter other issues. I would be fine watching the movies through a different method if it comes down to it!
I definitely think that zoom has been the right way to go. Me and discord don’t really get along well and I feel like using discord would severely overcomplicate things even more than they already are on zoom.
Zoom was most definitely the best way to go, there are issues with discords in terms of making sure everyone knows how to properly navigate it because not everyone knows how exactly to manage the settings with discord, and there’s also the struggle with making sure you’re picking the appropriate mic and everything.
I have enjoyed sticking with zoom, where we are able to have our cameras off. I do, however, wonder if there could ever be a way for students to go back and watch the films incase they missed a day, or if they weren’t paying attention. I do get very distracted while on zoom, especially when watching a movie. So, it would be nice to be able to pause the film to my liking.