In the last decade, the world has undergone changes considering both practical and pedagogical approaches to teaching and learning, especially considering the world wide pandemic during the years 2020-2022. This had led to new and innovative approaches to teaching, which in several cases has replaced or given alternatives to more conservative approaches to learning in a student group. The rise of video conferencing systems (VC) is a natural progression of this development, but what does a video conference system contain, and how can one utilize it to achieve better academic performances?

The research performed to provide data to this article is done within the project Portable Video Conferencing Toolkits and Online Applications for Engaging Learning Experience Design in Higher Education Classroom (EdViCon). EdViCon is a project cofounded from the European Union, that aims at investigating best practices and scenarios using educational video conferencing systems in order to achieve a higher and better learning experience. The project will develop educational materials to facilitate learning for educators, trainers, and students by adopting portable video conferencing systems and pedagogical designs involving online tools.

Earlier work within the project shows different potential scenarios for using VC and discusses challenges for using these, especially how to engage students. The next step for the project EdViCon is to design and pilot different VC-solutions, to figure out how to enhance the learning experience for the students, and how to ease the implementation for the teacher. In order to heighten academic performance it is necessary to know what the potential pitfalls are, and how to design a VC, especially considering hardware, in order to mitigate these.

This paper will show how the feedback from teachers, students and other relevant personnel aids the development of VC. The feedback is collected mainly through seven interviews including teachers, AV-experts, IT-personnel and learning-support staff at Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU) in 2022, and also includes data gathered through three focus groups performed at NTNU 2022. Through an analysis that interprets this feedback, the paper identifies different pain points connected to either software or hardware, that needs to be mitigated when choosing the best tools available for ideation of VC. The analysis considers possible problems that students, teachers and other personnel might face, and suggest ways of overcoming them. All problem statements are derived directly from these interviews done at NTNU. The interpretations are done by the researchers, and where there are no obvious solutions, previous research is applied to heighten the results.

The research aim for this study is to explore which types of digital tools work best when designing new VC- based learning activities to engage students during online and hybrid classes in a Norwegian Context.

The article concludes with presenting two possible portable toolkits that aids the intentions of VC in a good way.

Keywords: Video Conference Systems, learning activities, online learning, hybrid learning, PACT.