When you think of industries which video conferencing benefits most, the common response would be the business sector. We have seen that it is taking a turn in also benefiting the medical industry, and now it’s advanced to the educational sector.
In the US specifically, video conferencing is on the increase in not only the educational and business sectors, but other industries are also utilizing it as well, the justice system is using video communication in their courts, as we mentioned earlier about the medical sector as well. It’s on the increase globally in all industries.
The educational sector is beginning to adapt to using video conferencing more frequently these days than ever before. Universities globally are beginning to adapt to it. What about schools? Some schools are introducing telecommunication as we speak, great video chat programs such as Skype. A system which is commonly used in homes, which has now gradually advanced to various industries worldwide.
Below we discuss 4 ways how education can benefit using video conferencing in their classrooms:
School Outings
Do you remember all the field trips we would go on in school, amazing places like museums, theaters, gardens? One thing we never realized back then when we were still scholars, was the preparations that happened behind the scenes for us to go on these excursions. When you look at the preparations these days what teachers went through, you begin to realize that it’s not just a simple outing, it requires a lot of responsibility from the teacher’s side.
A great benefit to using video conferencing, is that instead of showing students a picture from textbooks, you can now take them on a virtual tour of locations around the globe. Students get bored very easily, using visual equipment you can turn it into an interactive game of sort.
Meet And Greet With The Experts
With students aged between their early and late teenage years in school, unless your teacher is exciting and teaches interesting topics they tend to get bored very easily in classrooms. I can admit that sometimes in school I wished that someone else could teach some subjects/topics instead of a teacher you see every day. Great News! Using video conferencing, you can allow students to interact with experts about certain topics teachers are using to educate their students.
Instead of an expert having to travel out of his schedule to come to visit schools, using a video feed, he/she can interact with students from a location suitable to him/her. The expert can share his/her expertise and at the same time interact with the students.
Interaction Between Schools
Schools have a variety of different “clubs”, ranging from a maths team all the way to a debating team. Once in a while, you get events which require a combination of schools to come together to do a task together.
Instead of being limited to having to meet at one location, students can now use video conferencing to engage with each other to focus on what is needed to complete a certain task. An added benefit is that you are able to learn from each other’s cultures.
Students can benefit from using video conferencing especially if they have the task of doing a project based on a country. Through the social media and video chat/conferencing, they can interact with people from the countries they need to learn from.
Having Access To Live/Recorded Courses
There are schools around the world which aren’t as fortunate as some of the schools we were at. Schools based in rural areas who aren’t as fortunate as we are in terms of technology. Luckily, there are community-driven groups helping these areas out. Rural schools can now have accessibility to watch courses. Although they are still limited they can at least gain new expertise from other teachers.
Video conferencing has opened up many opportunities these days for students. They are no longer restricted in terms of learning new things.
