Is School By Zoom Doomed?

Is Zoom doomed when it comes to providing video conferencing for the millions of students who are were set to attend school remotely this fall due to COVID-19?

It seems so.

As reported by consumer reporter Bob Sullivan this morning: “Videoconferencing tool Zoom experienced widespread outages on Monday, frustrating teachers and students as many school districts were trying to ramp up return-to-school remote learning. It’s yet another sign that we’re living on Covid-19 time right now.  While schools spent all summer developing backup plans in case they couldn’t offer in-person learning this fall — videoconferencing was always plan B – I suspect few prepared backup plans for a Zoom failure.”

As Sullivan notes, Zoom could be the “fragile” link in school plans this fall.

“Thousands of American schools have come to rely on this private company’s servers as a lifeline to American children — in some ways, more important than books and teachers to our national education system.  That set the company, and the country, up for such a failure. The outage, even if short-lived, is a reminder of just how fragile our jerry-rigged education system is.  Zoom is essentially critical infrastructure right now. Many teachers and students pay nothing, or next to nothing, for it.”