Cameras Off? Cameras On?

We had an awesome OpenEd 2021 session despite a tough day. Tonight, we watched a recorded presentation from ALT 2021 entitled “Should we see students’ cameras when we teach online synchronous sessions?” presented by Catherine Bazela, Pete Mella, and Robert Spark. Mella began by asking the audience: “if we asked you to switch on your camera, would you do it? If not, put in the chat why.” This session, Bazela explained, was developed to raise awareness of accessibility and inclusivity issues and the rapid transition to online instruction in the spring of 2020 due to the pandemic. Bazela listed several reasons why you would want to keep your camera on: necessary for some practical elements in some disciplines (language instruction), to monitor engagement and reading of the room, for interaction, for accessibility/inclusivity to read/follow cues, friendliness… Mella commented on a question they asked participants: “what technical issues have you or students faced or may face when participating in a synchronous session?” Respondents mentioned device ownership, bandwidth concerns, and digital skill (clearing cache, updating browser, accessing systems). Bazela talked about the non-technical issues that respondents mentioned in their study. When is it appropriate to look into the home life of students? This could lead to inequality. Bazela listed several considerations they found: home life / privacy, mental health, accessibility, cultural, safeguarding… I appreciate that Bazela mentioned that “people should present without changing who they are” as I never thought about it that way. Mella also stated that recording the video sessions makes it more permanent and brings in several new considerations. Camera use “doesn’t prove that people are engaging and that people are not engaging” was a thought-provoking statement Mella made. Mella suggested building in polls, chat box, and activities that are simple and active. Bazela in response to a question from the audience mentioned that most of the research has been on undergraduate courses. This makes me think about camera use for graduate students and during professional development sessions. How many of us turn cameras off or have them on and are multitasking? I know I try to keep my camera on but also have several things going on in different windows. Going back to Mella’s comment: camera use to evaluate engagement is not very useful.

Woman working on laptop wearing earbuds. Laptop screen shows another woman in video conference.
What factors should be considered when requiring or measuring camera use? Photo by Anna Shvets on Pexels.com