Hi there. In this short education post I talk about online tutoring and talking to voices. Contents from this work is based on my own experiences in the private educational services sector.
In my online tutoring work and in my educational services work many students have their video off online. Video off could be for privacy reasons, not showing their messy rooms or they could be distracted. The educator should show themselves online so the students know there is someone behind the camera and not a complete stranger. With the student they are not obligated to show themselves online.
When students don't show themselves the online learning sessions become somewhat weird. The educator doesn't really see people on the screen. The educator may interact with an online whiteboard to display notes, drawings, symbols, pictures and/or mathematics. Interactions with the students that don't show themselves reduces to interactions from the educator with student voices.
I understand the privacy aspect of a student not showing himself/herself online but some have their video off so they can be distracted. Educators cannot really tell if a student with video off is really paying attention or not. The student with video off can easily be texting, away from the computer, internet browsing, playing video games or using a online messaging service.
There was one instance I had where I asked a student with video off if he was there at the start of a tutoring session. This student ignored me for a few minutes. Then he was asking me "Sorry, were you saying something?". This annoyed me and I do not like thinking about it to this day lol.
From my side hustle I do some group tutoring online. It is me teaching some math concepts to a small group of two to four people. There are times when I ask a question and I get no response. It gets awkward fast. Who knows what goes on on the other side.
Thank you for reading.
