Can Discord Be Used For Studying?

In the spring of 2020 when the world was shutting down, teachers were looking at meeting their students where they were — i.e, chatting with friends online — Classroom Discord servers served the purpose. More and more educational institutes began using Discord often as a place to learn as well as “hang-out”. Two years since, physical classrooms are in full swing but Discord continues to to be a valid and secure option for virtual classrooms and group gatherings.

What is Discord?

Discord is a messaging platform that works on any browser, via an app or through a downloadable application. After Discord app download it is simple and easy to make an account and get started. Discord can be used to either join existing servers or create your own. You can also text and ‘friend’ individuals directly through your personal chats. You can add people’s contacts by simply searching their username on the platform. Discord web/app is where people can make a home for their communities and friends. It is easier to talk everyday and hang out with new individuals or even with friends more often. Users have the ability to communicate through voice calls, video calls, text messaging, media and files in private chats or by being part of communities called "servers''

Servers are where the texting happens and this is where you can conduct classes too. You can interact with those who have similar interests by participating in various servers.These servers have admins that look after the chat, making sure that things stay in order and maintain welfare among server members.

The Channels aren’t connected, so they’re more like chatting spaces within a server. Discord app download has a large amount of options like pinning texts which highlight pins for everyone to see in the server, Moderators can easily monitor various channels and the chat is always going to stay active if people give attention to server’s chat, students can just as easily look at old messages by searching for them on channels after the fact as they can chat live.

Helpful For Students

Due to Discord’s ability to reach a large student base, there are many school-focused discord servers. Lots of students have come to Discord web to attend virtual classrooms, particularly those who prefer online learning. Then there are others who came to the APP for professional development, like conference servers for confidential conversations or for creating virtual expo halls.

Discord’s strength at providing ways for students to interact with a course in multimodal ways, such as through link sharing, posting GIFS or using emotes or special stickers that can be added in by students. Being able to switch between channels easily provides more flexibility for both students and teachers.

There are some downsides to this though, it can be easy to get lost in non-threaded messages; busy channels, reading over old, single-line comments can get tiresome. Managing Discord server’s expectations such as whether there are designated class times for students of different grades and subjects can help.

How Covid-19 Boosted Discord Usage

It can be said that the Covid-19 pandemic years were huge for Discord. The chat platform used by gamers and streamers has expanded drastically. Last year it hit 140 million monthly users, twice as many as those who used it before. With schools switching to online, people locked in their homes, video games and streaming became hugely popular, and Discord became a new place for the young adults to hang-out. Having said that, today, Discord isn’t just a gamers app or a hangout place. It’s also a space for collaboration for organisations and a place of knowledge for students.

Students have been hit hard during the COVID-19 pandemic and all educators looked for ways to meet their social-emotional needs. While many young people face increasing anxiety and depression and more such mental health emergencies, a social space through Discord servers has been a comfort for teens who received counselling by school counsellors.

Discord For Teachers

Teachers can use the Discord app as a core of learning, communication and a synchronous instructional tool. It will work particularly well for remote learning scenarios, flipped classrooms, and various types of school clubs. It can be a place for instruction or for knowledge sharing depending on your goals. Discord has moderator or admin features that teachers can use while conferencing, such as screen sharing, text chat, video calling, and the ability to mute or remove students from calls.

A Hub of Interaction

What sets Discord apart from other platforms is its persistence. Once students are in a teacher's Discord server, they'll be able to browse any existing channels and content (including texts, links, media,etc) and get in and out of voice chat rooms to participate in scheduled or impromptu conferences.

Discord channels can be based on certain topics for members. Major channels can be used for school purposes or school club activities only. While other channels can be just for fun, something like a student cafeteria where they can post memes or discuss the notes for studying together informally.

While Discord is not as robust with classroom-specific features as Google Classroom or Schoology, a creative teacher could turn Discord into a highly functional platform for learning with cooperation of students.

A Discord server might take a bit more classroom management and prep to make sure it's a great experience for everyone. Making sure to set rules and certain expectations around class behaviour and participation, tutors too could give a bit of a leevy on how students prefer to communicate - texts, video/ voice calls. Regardless of what options students choose, it's easy for everyone to see, hear, or read everyone's contributions.Texts, pictures etc are archived, so that you can easily go back and revise what was discussed last week or month. Teachers too can rehash student contributions on important concepts. This will archive things and affirm students' various contributions. Paraphrasing or summarising a student’s work could also be a good formative assessment opportunity.

Pro-tip: Many students might already have a Discord account. Before having them join, remind them that they should use a school-appropriate name. We hope this helps people understand how resourceful discord can be if used for educational purposes.