Classrooms are empty all across the world. What was once the location to teach bright young minds is now a deserted wasteland of chairs, desks and chalkboards. In this modern era, the education world has turned to the internet in an attempt to maintain any sense of normalcy within the classroom, but have professors chosen the best option to make their classrooms feel alive again?
Most professors turned to Zoom, a video conferencing software that has become the largest used platform during quarantine. However, there are many issues that come with Zoom. The first being that it is not technically free. Sure there is a free option, but it only allows for a call to last 45 minutes and most class periods last much longer. So sure you could fork over the cash, but then that’s not exactly a free program anymore is it. And yes, a lot of universities and institutions have paid for their students and faculty to have the premium version of Zoom, but that is a lot of money and schools with less money to throw around will have an issue paying for that without major budget cuts to necessary resource. Another issue with Zoom is that students hate it. No one had ever heard of Zoom before now, it’s not very easy to use and extremely unreliable. I know beggars can’t be choosers, but there is no reason to beg when there are other options!
The other option is Discord. Discord is an actually free, easy to use solution that not only completely replaces Zoom but also completely replaces many other resources professors use. Maybe you don’t want to completely remove Zoom but maybe you want to use it at a resource for your classroom. Discord is made up of spaces known as servers — think of your server as your classroom. These servers are organized into individual channels where you can interact with students or other teachers and teaching assistants. So what features make Discord a good resource to have for your classroom?
Invite Only
When zoom became a part of everyone’s lives a new trend arose: “Zoom-bombing.” Zoom-bombing or Zoom raiding refers to the unwanted, disruptive intrusion, generally by Internet trolls and hackers, into a video conference call. In a typical Zoombombing incident, a teleconferencing session is hijacked by the insertion of material that are lewd, obscene, racist, or anti-Semitic in nature, typically resulting of the shutdown of the session. Most if not all professors have had to deal with this issue and Zoom seems to have found a solution.
Discord solved it before it ever happened; Discord is invite only. What this means is that only people with the invite link can join the server. The invite link also does not last forever. You can determine how long it will last (30 minutes, 1, 6, 12 hours or 1 full day.) and you can set how many times it can be clicked before it expires (Between 1, 5, 10, 25, 50, or 100 clicks.) This way no one can get access to the discord server unless you want them too.
However, in the odd and weird case scenario that something went wrong and an unwanted individual has made it into your discord server there are precautions in place. You have the ability to kick and ban people from the server, and if they left any unwanted messages in their wake you can simply delete them and no one will be able to see them. Either way you have complete control of who comes into your server, and in the event that someone happens to find a way around that you can just make them leave.
Data Usage
Speaking of security what does discord do with the data it is given? With companies like Facebook sell out our information to the highest bidder, Discord’s stance is that they refuse to sell our information. In addition, Discord has a bounty out on vulnerabilities which means that it actively pays people to find vulnerabilities in its security and then helps patch them. This makes discord a pretty secure way to communicate online. However, as with all things that have to do with businesses and data, if you are concerned about another Facebook scenario occurring within Discord, please read their privacy policy and come to your own conclusion. Everyone has different things they need to feel safe, so it is important you read it for yourself.
Easy Access
Discord is accessible. You can download and sign up for Discord for free on desktop, iOS, Android, or via your web browser. That means that anyone with access to the internet can access your discord server and therefore the classroom. It is also just as intuitive on your phone as it is on your computer, so you will always be able to connect with your students and answer questions as easily as answering a text. You will also receive notifications as if they were texts, meaning you don’t have to wait to check your emails and scroll through all of the junk to find your students question. It’s as easy as opening up discord and clicking the notification.
And in the same way, they will be able to ask you questions with the same ease. A lot of the time, students will be scared to ask questions for fear of looking dumb or just not wanting to go through the hassle of writing a formal email for a question that could be summarized in one sentence. Discord helps bridge the gap and will make you, as their professor, seem much more approachable. This coupled with the fact that you can respond wherever you are means that students will be more willing to ask what’s on their mind.
Roles and Channels
One of the great things about discord is the diversity in what you can do with your classroom or server. One of the things you can do is create text channels. Text channels are almost like creating a group chat through text but all contained within one space. In essence you create a text channel, determine who can type and send messages in it, and who can see it. After that you are done! You can change these permissions at any time, so if you made a mistake or something changes you can quickly modify the channel to your needs.
There are also voice channels that work similarly to text channels in the way that you can change who has permission to see the channel and access it. So section 1 of your class can’t join section 2’s voice channel if you set up your permissions that way. Voice channels also have a few added benefits. You can give certain roles priority when speaking, which means you will never be drowned out by your students. Admins and certain roles have access to the ability to forcefully mute or deafen people, that way you can make sure everything is organized and no one is speaking out of turn. Screen sharing is also a lot easier with discord and does not require the same weird setup it does for Zoom. Additionally, Discord provides a feature known as ‘push to talk’ where their computer will only pick up audio if you press a specific button. This way students with noisy backgrounds can still be active in conversations and choose when they wish to be heard instead of muting and unmuting themselves. You also have the ability to ban and kick students from the voice chat, meaning that if something does get out of hand you have the power to stop it.
Now, that is a lot of permissions to give out to each individual in your classroom, but thankfully Discord has a solution to that. Discord has something called ‘roles’ which basically groups up the people in your server by category. This way you can just modify the permissions of a role instead of each individual person. You can create roles and then assign people to those roles to give them access to certain channels.
Easy to Use
I know that this all seems like a lot and honestly at first glance it is. However, Discord provides explanations every step of the way and with a bit of practice it is extremely easy to use and understand. I personally only started using it last August and within a month of working with its functions understood everything I needed to know. Discord is also extremely good with displaying information to its users, having multiple online forums and information pages. This means that if you are uncertain of how something works a quick google is likely to give you the answer straight from the source.
Discord Wants You!
The most difficult thing about Discord is setting up a channel to be able to use all of the great things it is offering, but Discord has actually offered a template for professors to use to set up their server. Discord understands that as an educator, it is probably the first time you have heard of discord and this link will breeze through the Discord signup process and will automatically get your own pre-organized classroom space.
Covid-19 has brought with it many hard times, and educators are trying to manage it the best they can but why follow what everyone else is doing, especially when no one likes it? Modern problems require modern solutions. With all of this in mind, please do yourself and your students a favor, dump Zoom and start using Discord. Trust me they will be grateful.
