Switching to online classes has been a big transition, but some things never change. The first weeks of every class are filled with the same barrage of notifications as ever: the dreaded “looking for a class group chat” posts.
They’re everywhere, from the SFU Facebook groups to Reddit, from Canvas discussions to Zoom tutorials, and anywhere SFU students can be found online. For weeks, the bottom of every Zoom call is a jack-in-the-box, the words “add me!” and “group chat?” springing out at random moments, as though mass spamming over lecture slides is helpful.
It’s never just one person asking; they come in troves, asking on the same platform for the same class, over and over without bothering to check the identical post from the day before. From the moment someone asks for a Facebook group chat in a tutorial, I know we’re doomed to have confused interjections about it for the rest of the afternoon. I’m getting exhausted with every platform I’m on sending me emails and of my phone buzzing when someone new decides they want a class group chat.
We need a designated space for students to discuss classwork and studying, like a Canvas discussion page in the course, for when these conversations don’t occur in the classroom. It’s time for the search for group chats to end.
