JAMES DANCE
Third-year Deakin Law student Cameron Holdsworth (20) is no stranger to a cheeky Bb Collaborate seminar. Having maintained a part-time job and completed a few T3 Cloud-based units, Cameron is in fact a Bb Collaborate connoisseur. But with the advent of COVID-19, these 55-minute sessions of looking into a webcam are getting a little old.
“Look, I’ve always appreciated the convenience of the online seminars. The fact that they’re recorded has saved my life a few times too.”
Reporting to Damages Incurred, Cameron indicated that 90% of the time he only listens to the seminars once they’re recorded.
“There’s nothing worse than being stuck in a live seminar when it’s just yourself, the lecturer and some other unknown person whose microphone never seems to work. What’s worse, is that these awkward two-way conversations are recorded for everyone in the unit to hear.”
Even with a good number of members, the live seminars are still problematic for Cameron. In his current Corporate Law seminars, there’s one student who feels the need to repeat through a crackly microphone, “Can you hear me now? How about now? Oh wait, yeah – how about now? Can you hear me?”
The problem? The group’s been able to hear them the whole time
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To add insult to injury, the faceless online classroom emboldens this person to voice their weird and unique opinions. Cameron recalls the first couple of minutes during a seminar last week before the class began, in which this person suggested that COVID-19 was just a worldwide government-led conspiracy that Australia has bought into to so that it can revive and extend the fabled Sydney lockout laws to the rest of the country on a 24/7 basis.
At the end of the day, though, we’re all doing the best we can. Although Cameron laments these circumstances, he made clear to Damages Incurred that he was glad we’re not spending a fortnight teaching ourselves how to use Zoom like other devoutly campus-based universities.
