As you may know, South Shore students were offered the option to attend school virtually. Virtual students attend their classes via Zoom and do their schoolwork on Google Classroom. We asked some of these students some questions about  the benefits and disadvantages of being a virtual student at South Shore.  

First off, I asked why they chose to do virtual learning in the first place; the responses varied. Kyla Smith, Ashton Rantala, and Taylor Nicoletti were all worried about the spread of Covid-19. Kyla elaborated, “It was the best choice for me because my parents were very worried about Covid-19. I personally was worried about the Covid-19 situation affecting my education.”  Ian Laakonen simply stated that he didn’t want to wear a mask all day (I think we can all relate).

What does a typical virtual school day look like? Taylor starts her day attending a homeroom zoom at 8, then around 9 attends a civics zoom, followed by chemistry and english. After that, she is usually done with zooms and works on classwork for her other classes. This seemed to be a trend among the interviewees. Since not all of their classes have to have a zoom meeting, they have more time left in the day to complete their schoolwork. 

What are the cons of attending school virtually? The most common answer was: “I miss my friends,” along with missing the school lunches, the lack of one-on-one learning opportunities, and technical issues. “It can be hard to hear and join in conversations over zoom,  and technology can be overall troubling sometimes,” Taylor explained. 

Although there are some cons to virtual learning, there was an overwhelming list of pros as well. More free time was one of the biggest points made. When attending school virtually, students can get their work done as quickly as they want, which could also be reversed in the sense that they get more time to work without the distractions of actually being in school. Ian explained that he can now eat in class, sleep in, and he doesn’t have to ask to use the bathroom. Virtual students also get much more free time since they don’t have to worry about transportation, lunch hour, passing periods, etc. 

Finally, my last question was “Do you miss coming to school?” For the most part, the answer was yes, although they seemed to be content with having the extra time to themselves. Ashton summed his answer up pretty well: “Yes, I miss my friends and the food but I know that I feel safer at home with this virus going on.” Thank you to those who provided insight on this new way of learning.