It's obvious that your quality of education has improved and makes sense that you'd want to kleep it that way. It would be great if we could support people in your situation without greatly diminishing the experience of a huge component of attendees though: all those with learning, attention and focus issues. The stats are truely mind boggling with how many kids struggle to control their behaviour in a virtual classroom.
Question: why DON'T you stay remote? Most of the time the last thing we want to do is isolate people in different situations but it sounds like this would be preferable for you. It would seem to be quite easy to support too.
Edit: fix grammar + clarify.
With the right tech and competent teachers, it’s completely doable in my experience.
Your presentation is deeply affected by the kind of audience you're aimed at.
I guess I was making a point in reaction to the many "hybrid" in person / online courses being offered by universities, for the fall and possibly beyond. Hybrid is actually harder than either 100% in person or 100% online.
With online, it's brutal trying to retain focus at a monitor and reading while retaining. The focus drifts in and out unconsciously so you can read an entire page of text before realizing you retained literally none.
For text based learning I often need to dedicate a large amount of time "re-reading" material in advance to improve retention during the live discussion part if it lacks enough depth. Calculus was the critical crux of my educational path.
My secret weapon in French class in school was a tape deck with treble/bass controls. A big chunk of the work was transcription of recorded material. Rewind, play, pause, play, rewind, fiddling with the nobs to deal with the static on my copy of a copy of the tape. You can't do that with live content. You can with prerecorded materials (IF the designers think of it).
There are a lot of videos with people who take too long to get to the point and I have to increase the speed to stay focused. Slowing things down for any sensory impairment I presume helps other people.
When my family member was a kid he did not want to use the audio assistive devices in classes because he was self-conscious. It's a production. There are resources to be 'checked out' and 'checked in' every day. I don't think I'd be as comfortable using most of the tools I use if I had an audience.
He spends a lot of time online because -everybody- suffers to an extent from his limitation online. The cocktail party effect, the ability to filter one conversation out from many, fails for everyone, not just people with hearing aids. So people have to learn not to talk over each other if they want anyone to hear them, which means his listening comprehension goes way up.
I work with several quiet people, and when we used to have a meeting outdoors or in a large area, I often wouldn't be able to hear what they were saying.
Now, we all have headphones and microphones, and I can hear what everyone has to say without asking them to repeat themselves. It's improved communication tremendously, and I'm sure they're feeling more heard now as well.
Blind person here. On line learning is the best thing that can happen to diversity and inclusion, particularly when disabled people are concerned. For me, being in an environment free of students constantly shouting over my speech synth made a huge difference. I could adjust the volume of the teacher, or even mute them for a while, when I really needed to focus on the speech. Being able to request the name of the person talking, or hear who joins/leaves/raises hand is really useful too. I imagine the difference is even bigger for blind teachers, as they normally don't know who raises the hand or talks, and that's very important to them. Other disabilities benefit too, wheelchair users were very relieved they didn't have to move / be moved through inaccessible buildings etc.
There are a lot of accessibility implications to on line learning, most of them positive. Personally, I wish I could just stay that way forever.