VIRTUAL CLASSROOMS DURING COV-19 PANDEMIC IN INDIA- SOME OF THE CHALLENGES TO BE ADDRESSED IN JULY 2020
By Dr. S. Nithyaleela Director & Co- founder, TransCat People Solutions Pvt. Ltd.
In the prevailing pandemic situation due to COVID-19, Educational Institutions like Schools, Colleges, and Universities are forced to switch over to virtual platforms like online classes, Webinars for their students to implement safety measures like Social Distancing. As it was not an anticipated or a customary method to conduct classes, many of the teachers and lecturers are still struggling to create the same impact in students, which they use to make in the traditional classrooms.
Some of the factors affecting are the following:
During their Teacher Training courses(B.Ed. or M. Ed. or TTC) school teachers rarely or never practiced online teaching, without real students sitting in front of them in the classrooms. Now teachers are not seeing and hearing all students real-time and there by unable to modify their methodology based on the reactions of students during the class. Moreover, teachers are not aware about the presence of the family members sitting near to students, which is an added distraction to them. Many of those group activities teachers used to conduct earlier in classroom for increasing the learning capabilities of students are not easy to replicate now in online teaching.
All the teachers are not used to handling camera (web camera in laptops or attached to desktops/ video chat in smart phones) and teaching simultaneously. Many of the teachers are not conscious about the background inthe online screen, which is visible to students and presence of background noises. Teachers many not be aware that their sessions are getting recorded and may be getting published in digital media and circulated in multiple channels of social media and getting stored in various places. There are no dedicated technicians to assist the teacher for e.g.,camera man, lighting assistant or editor and that is why the teacher needs to find a way to Teach, Handle Camera (in some cases editing), and make sure that background is good,well-lit etc.. Occasional use of Board in virtual teaching is also not easy for many teachers, who are not comfortable in using advanced options/platforms for conducting online classrooms.
Non-availability of hardware support,like laptop/desktop/tablet,camera,headphones, microphones, Internet modem/ hotspot, Smartphones etc., is another challenge for the teacher (e.g. He/she may have other members in the family who also need access to same set of resources for learning or teaching or work from home) making situation more complicated. Selecting apt platform for conducting their online classes is not in the control of many teachers. Most of the School Managements or teachers are not aware about the various features, merits and demerits of most of the online discussion/learning platforms as well as about all the options available to make the class more effective and interactive.
Many educational institutes and voluntary organizations as well as online platform providers have pitched in to help teachers to understand the technicalities of online teaching. Teachers can become camera friendly and create better impact by leveraging educational videos and animations (wherever required) and by attending Webinars and learning from YouTube videos available on these topics.
Many of the teachers are not aware about the intellectual property rights attached to the content/videos they may find from internet and broadcast as a part of sessions.
There is a huge chance of abusing the internet and digital devices and Social media, especially by the children. Many students, parents and teachers are not aware of the possible crimes and dangers associated with the same. To Safeguard them from Cyber-crimes (which are rising now) and educate them on the pitfalls in wasting time in Internet and Social media, Awareness programs need to be conducted Cyber Security Specialists.
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Going Virtual - Conducting your Classes and Train Online" - by Dr. Priti Modi Iyer n.d., Lead - Digital Learning, TransCat People Solutions Pvt. Ltd.
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