Rise of Online Teaching and Learning Processes During COVID-19 Pandemic

Abstract

The current pandemic COVID-19 has been continuing to spread rapidly, and its impact and savage forced the governments all around the globe to shut down schools, colleges, and universities for an indefinite period. This prolonged situation has become a significant problem for the global educational community, and millions of students are detached temporarily from their institutes. Almost in every victim country, governments launched online platforms to sustain the educational industry. As a result, the educational system is changing with the distinctive emergence of online teaching and learning processes. The present chapter raises, discusses, and presents potential solutions to different affairs of the online teaching and learning process and presents a comparative analysis of Internet-based educational/teaching platforms being employed by educational practitioners all around the world during the global COVID-19 crises. It also analyzes a brief survey on Indian teachers about their experiences, expectations, and suggestions on online teaching and learning practices.

Appendix

Some of these popular digital learning platforms released under the Indian government’s initiatives are discussed below:

1.1 A.1 SHAGUN

This is related to the education system in schools for more convenient teaching and learning. This is a digital platform through which many e-learning sites have been introduced by the government of India, all states, and union territories (UTs). The main goal of the SHAGUN program is to provide teachers and students with a forum where they can connect using Internet technologies for the teaching and learning process. SHAGUN program itself contains three other e-learning platforms which are mentioned below:

1.2 A.2 DIKSHA

The MHRD introduced the National Digital Teachers’ Infrastructure (DIKSHA) platform to bring teachers and students of classes I to XII grade into the e-learning environment. This platform provides teaching and learning material to teachers and students with easy access and better understanding. DIKSHA contains more than 85,000 e-books prepared by NCERT, CBSE, and states/UTs for classes I to XII, along with a web mobile app. This digital platform is available in multiple languages so that students from various states can access this learning platform. The DIKSHA platform can be accessed from this link: https://diksha.gov.in/.

1.3 A.3 e-Pathshala

Under the initiative of Digital India, the e-Pathshala is a collaborative effort of MHRD and NCERT. The e-Pathshala platform is enriched with numerous textbooks, audios, videos, and other printable materials for students, teachers, parents, and researchers. This portal is also available in many languages like the other digital learning platforms and can be accessed using this link: https://epathshala.nic.in/.

1.4 A.4 National Repository of Open Educational Resources (NROER)

The NROER is a project launched by the Ministry of Strategic Human Resource Management, Department of School literacy and education, Government of India. NROER is one of the excellent e-learning initiatives with approximately 16,000 registered users across the nation and with more than 15,000 e-learning services. A broad range of video lectures is hosted on the NROER database repository which includes experts’ lectures from various domains, demonstration of science experiments, etc. NROER repository can be accessed from this link: https://nroer.gov.in/home/repository.

1.5 A.5 SWAYAM

SWAYAM, a Hindi abbreviation that stands for Study Webs of Active-Learning for Young Aspiring Minds is an Indian Massive Open Online Course (MOOC) platform. This digital forum provides study material in the form of video lectures, self-assessment tests, reading material, online discussions, and doubt sessions for students and faculty members. The portal is managed and run by many national coordinators such as AICTE, NCERT, IGNOU, NPTEL, UGC, NIOS, IIMB, and ITTTR, etc. for delivering and updating reliable and quality contents to the aspirants. This digital portal is very popular across the globe among the learning community which is being used by subscribers from over 60 countries, including India, Canada, UK, USA, UAE, Germany, Australia, Nepal, and Singapore. SWAYAM courses can be accessed using this link: https://swayam.gov.in/.

1.6 A.6 NPTEL

NPTEL stands for National Programme on Technology Enhanced Learning, which is an initiative launched in 2003 by seven IITs (IIT Bombay, Madras, Guwahati, Delhi, Kanpur, Kharagpur, and Roorkee) and the IISc Bangalore to develop study material for engineering and science disciplines. This program is funded by the MHRD to deliver training to teachers on curricula and pedagogy. The primary motivation behind the establishment of this platform was to provide quality and free education online to students seeking to learn from IITs faculty members. The NPTEL web portal contains video lectures for undergraduate and postgraduate levels courses in all major branches of engineering and sciences. The online NPTEL repository has more than 2000+ courses available to view and download along with 55,000 h of video transcripts available as PDF. NPTEL has been recognized as one of the most accessed online digital libraries of peer-reviewed educational content in the world. The official website of NPTEL can be accessed using this link: https://nptel.ac.in/.