During distance learning, many schools and institutions have opted to use the popular online meeting service Zoom as a way to replicate a learning environment. A type of prank known as “Zoom bombing” was created by exploiting Zoom’s security flaws, which allows unauthorized users to join meetings and cause chaos. Many classes in our own district have been “Zoom bombed,” so I am going to highlight some alternate programs used for online meetings and conclude if Zoom is truly the best to use for school.
Some of the most popular online meeting software other than Zoom are GoToMeeting, RingCentral Video, Microsoft Teams, and Google Meet. With Zoom, Google Meet and Microsoft teams all including a free tier, the other two must be paid each month to access their programs. Many of the paid software has additional add-on features that incorporate other programs like Microsoft 365, which are more geared towards businesses.
Zoom is one of the most popular programs used by schools and the general public for a couple of reasons. Zoom is one of the only video conferencing software that has a free price which has a lot of useful features. The basic plan includes the ability to hold 100 participants, 1080p HD video and audio, a user-friendly interface and many more. Zoom also has the ability to place members into separate rooms and allows anyone to screen share. This makes Zoom great for hosting family or friend meetings as many of Zoom’s competitors lack a free plan and some of these features. Zoom in its current state is secure enough for personal use or school use, but there have been many security issues with Zoom in the past. These issues have included allowing anyone to access private meetings, controlling the Zoom host’s computer, installing malware on people’s computers who joined the meeting, installing a backdoor to the computer which would allow hackers to access the computer, a keylogging software which would steal passwords, webcam hijacking and many more issues. Many of these problems were addressed quickly but most of these issues were not found by Zoom themselves, so there could still be more security flaws that have yet to be detected.
“I think Zoom does not do a good job replicating a classroom. Yes, it may be very convenient, but it’s very digital still and has their disadvantages of other people’s internet issues. Zoom is good compared to its competitors for being very accessible, but when it comes to internet connection, that’s where Zoom’s competitors, such as Google Classroom, do better for their simplicity” said Ethan Vo, a freshman at San Mateo High School.
Google Meet and Microsoft Teams are the two that compete with Zoom in the free category, with many of their features overlapping with one another. Microsoft Teams has a lot of features similar to Zoom but it also includes 250 integrated apps. Google Meet on the other hand has far better security than Zoom as it is in a browser and includes two-step verification. There are caveats for both of these software with Google Meet having a limited amount of meeting length and Microsoft teams not having the meeting recording option for their free plans.
These minor drawbacks can be fixed with the paid versions of each software. For the paid software, GoToMeeting is far more mobile-friendly than its competitors and has a wide range of security features. RingCentral Video has a lot of integrated software like Microsoft 365 and Slack. Even these paid software are not perfect, with RingCentral Video being far more expensive than its competitors and GoToMeeting using a lot of system resources.
When asked about if Zoom was good at replicating the school environment, Ms. Jain said, “to quite an extent. Of course, we can’t replicate the school environment. Going to school, hanging out with students, but in quarantine, I think we are doing a good job.”
With the wide range of features each software has, it is difficult to come to a definitive answer on what is the best video meeting software. All these programs have their perks and Zoom is not a terrible program by any means, but I would say Google Meet or Microsoft Teams are a bit better than Zoom. For business, GoToMeeting or RingCentral Video are solid choices as well. For school, Zoom does a decent enough job and not much would really change by switching to any of the other software.