Web-conference lecturing: In dialogue with student experiences during a pandemic visual technologies as a panacea for social isolation

Abstract

COVID-19 is an omnipresent feature of 2020, both globally and within Australia. For university students, a consequence of this has been the shift from on-campus to online delivery. Exploring these visual realities for lecturers and students, this article engages in Bakhtinian dialogism; a dialogic interaction that is born between peoples searching for meaning (Bakhtin, 1986). To do so, the authors engaged with and responded to students’ survey data whom they lecture and coordinate. Although the survey had limited responses, it enabled the authors to dialogue about received knowledge (istina) from students and contemplate this in relation to the authors’ own perspectives and experiences (pravda). Through this engagement, they suggest the importance of visually imbued emotive connectivity and dialogic relational care within web-conferencing, as well as didactic lecturing as valid forms of visual engagement.