We wanted to take this opportunity to clarify that students are not required to turn their cameras on during online learning and there are many reasons why they may choose to keep their cameras off. For example, they may find it overstimulating to focus while seeing their own face or they may want to keep their surroundings private.
There are many ways that students can demonstrate their engagement during Google Meets. Options include:
• Keeping the camera off and using the chat feature to indicate when they leave their screen (for example to get a snack or go to the bathroom) and when they come back; using the chat or raise hand feature to indicate that they would like to share an idea either out loud or directly in the chat.
• Keeping the camera on and changing the layout of Google Meet so that they only see the speaker and not all of their classmates at once; enabling Google Meet’s “turn on background blur”.