The Pandemic's Impact on Me as an 'Edutuber '

5/22/2020

Everybody's life has been changed due to COVID 19 crisis, which forces us to stay at home and stay safe. In higher institutions, lecturers have to cope with shifting their teaching and learning from face to face to fully online. Is was a sudden decision that everybody has to take, whether they like it or not.

And suddenly, Zoom, Webex, and Google Hangout become so visible, and everybody is trying to cope with it to handle online classes. I think I am lucky enough, as using these online platforms for synchronous meetings or class sessions has started long before the pandemic. Soon after the MCO was announced, I instantly offered online classes via Zoom. I could still remember how chaotic it was for the majority of our faculty members when they learned that all classes have to be conducted online - and they didn't know how to start using it.

Taking it as my responsibility, (I used to be an e-learning coordinator for my beloved faculty), I then created a simple screencasted video to show them how to use Zoom for online class. It was 2300 hr when I finished recording at one go and directly uploaded the video to my YouTube channel - with the only intention, i.e., to help my colleagues and to ensure everybody is not left behind.

Never in my mind that the video would go far. A few days after I posted the video, my niece, who is a teacher in Kemaman, sent me a picture of my Zoom tutorial via WhatsApp - telling me that the video was shared among their teachers' group. I also received information from my master students who saw my video on Zoom being shared by others. My feeling? Far from proud, I was actually feeling grateful that it benefitted more than my primarily targeted audience. Up to this very moment, the video has been viewed more than 5.8K.

Since then, I had my perception changed. It's about how technology can be a blessing if we used it in a proper, reasonable manner. It's about how a sincere work can grant you the satisfaction that no others can give. Since I am still working from home, I started to produce more videos, hoping that it would reach whoever in need.

This very sentimental time at home also gives me a chance to explore and experiment with new things. In my latest video, I used a green screen technique to enhance the video's quality and make it look more interesting. Not bad, I would say heheheh. If not because of the pandemic, I might not have time to explore the potentials of my video editing skills, let alone produce numbers of other tutorials. If not because of the pandemic, I might not have learned about what it takes to be a YouTuber ( I will share what I learned in other entries insha-Allah). Or oh, should I say Edutuber?