Discussions on Zoom are often the primary way teachers and students communicate in an online class. While the raise hand feature and audio-based conversation are undoubtedly critical, as classes get larger, the importance of chat-based communication increases. However, Zoom’s native chat feature does leave room for instructors to consider third-party discussion platforms. But having discussions in a second window during an online class just isn’t practical enough.
The issue: Zoom chat was built for meetings, not classrooms
- The chat ends and vanishes. Once your Zoom meeting ends, there is no way for students to view the chat or continue the discussion post-lecture.
- There’s no chat in the recording. Zoom’s recording feature does not capture the chat either. Recordings include only the audio and video.
- No chat analytics. The Zoom class chat is a treasure trove of data… except that the data is never available to instructors. All an instructor can do is download the chat transcript.
- No social reactions. A big indicator of the quality of a student’s contribution is “likes” or reactions. Zoom doesn’t have social reactions in the chat.
- No instructor rewards. There’s no way for instructors to reward quality contributions to the chat, a la a real classroom.
- No support for LaTeX. STEM classes use math equations frequently and regularly, which aren’t supported by the Zoom chat.
- No anonymous Q&A. There’s no way for students to ask questions anonymously.
- No threads. The Zoom chat is one long conversation. You can’t split or structure the conversation around different topics.
- No word clouds. 😔 Word clouds based on discussions can be super valuable in a classroom.
- No way to export chat data to the LMS. The Zoom LMS plugin does not provide a way to export chat data to the gradebook.
That’s where Acadly comes in
Acadly is a Virtual Classroom platform with Zoom integration. Think of it as a skin for Zoom with additional features for teaching and training, that can be purchased and used with your existing Zoom account. You can learn more about Acadly on the website.
Acadly discussions continue post-class too
Discussions are pivotal to the design of Acadly. One of the most striking aspects of Acadly is that the discussions (and in-class activities such as polls and quizzes) remain available after the lecture too.
It’s the little things
Discussions on Acadly are built with teaching and learning in mind. It’s evident in the way the interface is crafted, as the image below demonstrates.
You can also generate dynamically updating Word Clouds based on the class discussion
Word clouds help you capture the pulse of the overall discussion. Whether it’s a question or an opinion, word clouds help you visualize your class’ thoughts in a unique and captivating manner. Of course, students can check out the word cloud too — alternatively, you can project it to the screen so everyone can look at it together.
As students access the discussion-based word cloud (or any other activity such as a poll or a quiz), the video minimizes to a picture-in-picture mode, as shown below.
Read the how-to guide for using Word Clouds on Acadly
Export discussion stats at the click of a button
Finally, Acadly generates a ton of data regarding students’ engagement with every lecture, and also the course as a whole. In the case of discussions, Acadly helps you export metrics regarding both the volume as well as the quality of student participation at the click of a button.
This data, combined with the other reports on Acadly (such as poll participation, quiz performance, and classroom attendance) is a powerful way to create continuous evaluations as well as drive student success initiatives.
You can try Acadly Pro for free by signing up for an Acadly account here. Here’s the complete demo video!
