Due to Covid-19 school closures, Zoom has grown from a small video chat platform into an educational staple for schools across the globe in the span of a few months.

Zoom allows people to connect in video chat calls of up to 100 people at a time. Zoom is being implemented by schools across the United States and beyond in order to have a live “classroom” while students are home due to Covid-19. This platform allows students and teachers to connect on a daily basis and learn through a plethora of features provided by the platform. ]

Zoom was founded by Eric Yuan in 2011 and was developed and launched in January of 2013. The video conference program was originally designed for use by businesses as a way to video chat large calls from different locations. In December 2019, Zoom Video Communications stock hovered between $60-$70.

According to NASDAQ, on April 20 of this year, Zoom stock was worth $150.

The price of stock for the company has more than doubled in the past 4 months, a clear indicator of Zoom’s rise in popularity and success as an online learning tool. However, classroom Zoom calls do not come without hiccups.

William Strout, a senior from Manchester By The Sea, Mass., has encountered some while in Zoom classes

. “Random people can join class Zoom meetings as if they were a student even though they have no connection with the school,” he said. “The teacher’s audio can also become very distorted at random times and it’s really annoying.”

As the Zoom platform becomes more popular and used, the flaws also become more noticeable. According to the Zoom platform’s website, Zoom has done work to prevent many of the problems people face, such as enabling waiting rooms for classes.

These waiting rooms allow people entering a Zoom call to be put into a virtual server and are allowed in by the discretion of the Zoom call host or teacher. This feature gives online classrooms privacy and protection from unwelcome guests.

Zoom also has a plethora of small features that can be utilized by both teachers and students alike. These include reactions, customizable backgrounds, a shareable virtual whiteboard, and a share screen option.

Ceana Mclaughlin, a senior at Manchester High School, thinks “most of the shortcomings that Zoom has is not from the Zoom chat itself but the lack of knowledge the teachers have about the program. A few teachers use none of the features while some use most of them.”