Studying Online;Succeeding through Distance Learning at University

Using video 115 
Microsoft Teams are helpful in organising the work and sharing 
the workload. Group work is increasingly common in undergrad-
uate study as it helps prepare students for the workplace. As a re-
sult, you are likely to be using online video regularly for the group 
work activities you are required to do. For example, you may need 
to work as a group in preparation for a seminar. Or you may need 
to prepare joint work for a group assignment, and organising that 
via a video call would be helpful. 
A further use of online video is in assessment. You could be re-
quired to record video presentations for an assignment, for ex-
ample. Poster presentations are a common means of assessment 
as well, and presenting these at a distance to the university is only 
feasible using online video. So, it is not only lecturers who will 
have to get used to using this relatively new educational technol-
ogy. As a student, you too are going to need to get to grips with 
creating videos. 

The benefiTs of online video 
Video has obvious benefts. You can see your lecturer, for instance, 
in a recorded lecture. You can also see your fellow students in an 
online tutorial. If you couldn’t see the faces of the people involved 
in your classes, you would fnd it much less engaging and, there-
fore, more challenging to complete your online studies. 
Even so, many students are reluctant to use video. Tey are hap-
py to watch the video of the lectures but much more reluctant 
to switch on their webcam. Since the Covid pandemic started at 
the beginning of 2020, I have run online tutorial sessions on Mi-
crosoft Teams. However, after running over 300 tutorials online, 
I have yet to participate in one where every student switched on 
their webcams. Indeed, I have run many tutorials where I was the 
only person who had their camera on. Reasons given (or should 
that be excuses) included “poor Internet”, “there are other people 
in the house”, and even “I haven’t brushed my hair yet”. Te “poor 

---