How Zoom Makes eLearning Work

Education is one of the pillars of our modern world. Since it was first institutionalized, governments and private organizations all over the world have attempted to improve it in one way or another. Today, even corporations have started training their staff in an institutionalized manner, much like how classrooms operate. In recent years, the internet has been utilized to further streamline learning processes.

There’s a distinct harmony that comes from combining video instruction over Zoom with text-based tools that allows many students to understand the practical nature of the subjects they learn. Regardless of where you stand right now on the subject of online learning, it is important to know at least a few reasons why Zoom will make an excellent eLearning tool.

Right now, 77% of corporations in the United States are saving money by switching to an electronic learning environment for employee training. It’s imperative to note that running a bunch of computers in a monitored environment is a much more cost-effective method of education than hiring a dedicated instructor for each lesson, every day, in perpetuity.

Educators need not fear, though. They still will find a place in an eLearning environment. They are still going to need to update curricula and record new instructional material as time passes and new discoveries are made in the subjects that they teach. If students have questions, they still need to consult with someone. The process is just not going to be as demanding on teachers as it would if they were repeating the same course material five days a week.

We’ve just finished discussing the business end of the eLearning process. But how effective is it for the students? An affordable method is not enticing unless it is at least as effective as the more expensive one. Remember furiously scribbling notes during your college lectures? Using Zoom as an eLearning platform, this is no longer an issue.

Once a course has been recorded via Zoom, it can be viewed by the students as many times as they desire. Students can use their media players to pause a Zoom MP4 or M4A recording or rewind to a certain point. This allows them to learn at the pace that they find most comfortable. Trying to decipher ones handwriting while cramming for the final exam becomes a thing of the past.

Amazon’s Kindle did something revolutionary to books: it made them slowly disappear. People no longer have to go to bookstores to buy reading material. They can simply purchase and download entire libraries into a tiny chip in their tablets.

The same can be said about eLearning. The students no longer have an obligation to show up for school. Their courses can be handed to them right from the comfort of their homes. This obligation is also removed for educators, who have troubles of their own sometimes that keep them tied down.

The lack of an obligation to displace oneself may improve student retention, especially in adult-education programs where a student might have to watch their children or stay at work late, and would otherwise miss class.

Educators spend lots of time trying to keep classrooms in order and answering questions that only one person is interested in (remember that one guys who always asked the weirdest questions in class?). A lot of times, a teacher can spend 80% of class time explaining 50% of the content. What if all this time can be condensed into a carefully-outlined pre-recorded course?

While the course material can confuse students who often need a bit of hand-holding to get things done, you’ll notice that they’ll get along better as they repeat recorded courses. Either way, teachers will still be around to answer questions during virtual office hours. The difference here is that the questions will no longer take up course time.

In fact, something you can do to make this easier for both students and educators is to set up a forum or FAQ. If multiple students have the same question, they can see that the question has already been answered at one point and continue the learning process without much interruption!

If nothing else really convinces you that Zoom can make learning more interactive, perhaps our screen sharing feature will. With annotation to draw a student’s attention at a particular point on the screen, this feature becomes an educator’s holy grail. Chemistry teachers can now draw on top of molecular structures; physics teachers can point to important parts of an equation; and literature teachers are now able to highlight passages in text. All of this can happen live during a course or as part of a pre-recorded session that adds some color to the learning process.

If nothing will convince you that Zoom is an ideal tool for eLearning, perhaps this will do the trick. Animation schools like iAnimate.net need near-perfection in the video software they use in order to be able to educate their own students. You can also look to the University of Northern Iowa, Stanford Continuing Studies, and over 1,000 other colleges and universities. They like what they get with our software. We are also sure that you will.

It’s time to Zoomify your school! Put Zoom into your life and sign up for a free account today!