Driven by the exponential rise of virtual teaching sessions due to the continued lockdown of educational institutions around the world amid the pandemic, video conferencing app Zoom is introducing a set of features to enhance the teaching experience of tutors and students.
The new feature will be available for all students and teachers using the Zoom application all over the world.
Zoom is adding a customizable gallery view, Unmute with consent and multi-pinning features which would improve the quality of engagement among students and instructors on the platform.
The customized gallery view helps in creating a virtual classroom seating arrangement and help them to arrange the seating according to their choice.
The feature to lock the gallery to a default configuration will help to change the view even if a new student or partner joins the conference. While multi pinning will help to pin up to 9 participants on their personal customized view.
This will enable the teachers and students to see their face while talking. It will a great addition particularly for the differently-abled students and those who want to communicate in sign language.
The unmuting feature enables the audio muting of participants in the conferencing. The feature will immensely help teachers who are handling small children as they can stop unwanted background noise during the calls caused by students not knowing to mute the call. Through this option, teachers can unmute their audio as and when required.
Addressing the privacy issues arising out of these new additions, the company clarified that the unmute feature will only be activated if the participants have given their consent to be unmuted by other participants.
The company also said that the consent will also be allowed to be revoked by the participants including between conferences.
