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Online Learning During Lockdown

Online-Learning-During-Lockdown

The learning must go on-

By-

Dr. Amita Vijay  &  Adv. Khushbu Goyal

COVID-19, a little virus has brought a drastic change in the living style of complete humanity; all the processes manufacturing, transporting, consuming, and economic and also education and learning have paused. To control this epidemic, every possible effort is being done by all governments all over the world. One of the major steps taken is Lockdown, limiting movement of the entire population. On 24 March, Prime Minister of India Mr. Narendra Modi has ordered a nationwide lockdown for 21 days. Despite all the efforts done worldwide the epidemic is spreading unboundedly and creating devastation all around the world. In such a situation we cannot gather in a place to make it spread more. Thus the lockdown may continue long or may not but fear in the human mind has made difficulties to grow. 

In this time due to the closing of schools and colleges learning process has been slow down. It is now clear that society needs flexible and resilient education systems as we face unpredictable futures. Online learning is a powerful way to keep the learning process going on. There are online resources that can make home learning a bit easier and more fun.

In this article, we are talking about some online alternatives which can be used by students and learners to enhance their learning process in this lockdown time. 

 The learning must go on

  • Amazon allows book rental as part of a premium monthly payment service. Free audiobooks can also be accessed.
  • The Kindle application can also be used to download books on a phone. 
  • Google has announced free access to conferencing services which normally have an enterprise subscription rate during the coronavirus crisis. People can take advantage of this for individual or group learning as well.
  • Google Drive with Google suits applications: by this application People who have access to open-source school learning materials can exchange and share with others .it is the free service. 
  • Zoom, Google Hangouts, Skype, and Google Meets are also great platforms for live group learning or tutoring.

Some Zero-rated learning sites and resources provided by the HRD Ministry to India. From here materials can be downloaded for free and study for free. During the Coronavirus lockdown, it can be of a great source of learning and growing

SWAYAM Online Courses: SWAYAM Online Courses provide access to teaching-learning resources. Students can get registered on SWAYAM (swayam.gov.in) and can continue their learning as usual.

UG/PG MOOCs: UG/PG MOOCs hosts learning material of the SWAYAM UG and PG (Non-Technology) archived courses.

e-PG Pathshala:  hosts high quality, curriculum-based, interactive e-content containing 23,000 modules (e-text and video) in 70 Post Graduate disciplines of social sciences, arts, fine arts and humanities, natural & mathematical sciences.

e-Content courseware in UG subjects: 87 Undergraduate courses with about 24,110 e-content modules is available on the CEC website at http://cec.nic.in/.

SWAYAMPRABHA: It is a group of 32 DTH channels providing high-quality educational curriculum-based course contents covering diverse disciplines such as arts, science, commerce, performing arts, social sciences and humanities subjects, engineering, technology, law, medicine, agriculture, etc.

CEC-UGC YouTube channel: CEC-UGC YouTube channel provides access to unlimited educational curriculum based lectures free.

National Digital Library: this is a digital repository of a vast amount of academic content in different formats and provides interface support for leading Indian languages for all academic levels including researchers and life-long learners, all disciplines, all popular form of access devices and differently-abled learners.

Shodhganga: is a digital repository platform of 2, 60,000 Indian Electronic Theses and Dissertations for research students to deposit their Ph.D. theses and make it available to the entire scholarly community in open access.

e-Shodh Sindhu:  provides current as well as archival access to more than 15,000 crore and peer-reviewed journals and several bibliographic, citation and factual databases in different disciplines from a large number of publishers and aggregators to its member institutions including centrally-funded technical institutions, universities and colleges that are covered under 12(B) and 2(f) Sections of the UGC Act.

Vidwan:  is a database of experts which provides information about experts to peers, prospective collaborators, funding agencies policymakers, and research scholar in the country. Faculty members are requested to register on the Vidwan portal to help expand the database of experts.

Source: INDIA TODAY, March 26, 2020 edition  

Udemy, Teachable, WizIQ, Ruzuku, Educadium, LearnWorlds, Thinkific, Academy Of Mine, CourseCraft, Skillshare, Coursera, etc… are some sites which can be used for Free Online Education. 

Other than academics some more online learning initiatives are also going on all over the world. Some of them are:

Free exercise and language classes

Fitness guru Joe Wicks has become the “PE teacher for the nation” by his daily YouTube workout 9 am each morning for a 30-minute .this workout is designed as an alternative to school PE lessons. Rosetta Stone is giving free access for schoolchildren to use its language courses for the next three months, saving parents the usual £50 fee. Go to rosettastone.co.uk/lp/freeforkids/. 

 Online Meditation and yoga classes

This time of Quarantine has brought depressive feelings and anxiety, stress & fear also the frustration of movement restriction which is weakening our immunity. To overcome these spiritual gurus Sri Sri Ravi Shankar, Sadhguru Jaggi Vasudev, Brahma kumaris, etc. are motivating people to make use of this time to move inwards and explore the inner power and creativity. The free online meditation courses have been started, every day live Satsang’s are been broadcast. Some of the links are –

Daily live online guided meditation with Gurudev Sri Sri RaviShankarji at 12 noon and 07.30 pm IST on youtube.com/srisri, fb.com/srisriravishankar,instagram.com/artofliving, 

11:30 am to 12:00 Noon- Yoga & Daily Detox With Kashi Bhaiyya (facebook.com/SriSriYoga/ )

https://isha.sadhguru.org/global/en/blog/article/with-sadhguru-challenging-times-live-webstream

Disadvantages

Online learning has some disadvantages also. Unmotivated learners or those with poor study habits may fall behind

  • Lack of familiar structure and routine may take getting used to
  • Students may feel isolated or miss social interaction thus the need to understanding different learning styles and individual learner needs.
  • An instructor may not always be available on demand
  • Slow or unreliable Internet connections can be frustrating
  • Managing learning software can involve a learning curve
  • Some courses such as traditional hands-on courses can be difficult to simulate
  • lack of self-discipline,
  •  No face-to-face interaction,
  •  Lack of flexibility,
  •  Lack of input from trainers, 
  •  Slow evolution, 
  • Lack of transformational power

Impact of Lockdown on the learning process

Students are been promoted without examination – Unmotivated learners will dwell which can make students lazy and also carefree towards the studies. Some online tasks or assignments may be given to students, and after evaluating them, students must be promoted to the next class. This will help in motivating the learning habits of students 

Students are overloaded with online classes and assignments – As students are not habitual to such kind of learning and there is lack of direct monitoring, students may not be able to cope up with the assignments and online classes. They may get overloaded, bored and feel unmotivated.-  

Exams schedule has been disturbed, all the college, university and competitive examinations will be rescheduled. This will take a long time to reschedule next year’s batch and make everything streamline. 

Technology up-gradation problem 

Teachers and educational institutes are still using traditional e-learning programs. There is a need to switch to modern e-learning programs. Here is the comparison between traditional systems and the modern learning system which will clear the picture of the requirement of Modern learning systems in all educational institutions. For this teachers and instructors have to upgrade themselves. This will speed up the learning process in this lockdown.

 Traditional LMSTraditional LCMSModern Learning System
Learning Experience
Learning InterventionsFormalFormal, InformalFormal, Informal, and Social
Learner EngagementClassroom, Desktop Classroom plus on-demand learning via web or mobile: anytime, anywhere, and on any device.
End-User ToolsBrowse Catalog, Simple Search, Email notification Browse Catalog, Faceted Search, Individual Development Plan, Dynamic Recommendations, Learning Paths, Learner/Manager Dashboards, Email/Text Notifications, Ratings and Reviews, Badges/Leaderboards
Learning Content
Content AuthoringSimple Course Builder, Rapid Authoring ToolsSophisticated and structured authoring for courses, presentations, printed guides, job aids, web pages, and FlashGranular learning content separated from the presentation for rapid assembly and reuse across any output format or audience
Content Management Versioning, workflow, and review toolsOnline collaboration, versioning, workflow, and review tools
Content Publishing Print and web output templates/formatsPrint, responsive web (HTML5/CSS3), and mobile output templates/formats
Digital Content DeliveryCourses·         SCORM/AICC

·         Instructor-led

Packaged SCORM/AICC or PDFLearning Object Repository (LOR) serving multiple formats for many systems and devices
Learning Administration
User and Group AdministrationManage Users and Groups Single Sign-On (SSO), integrated with the HR system
Course AdministrationCourse Enrollment, Completion Rules, Classroom Management Course Enrollment, Learning Paths, Classroom Management, Competency Management, Certification Management
Reporting and AnalyticsCompletion Tracking, Test Scores Centralized Learning Record Store (LRS) for reporting and analytics, Completion Tracking, Test Scores, Question Analytics, Informal Learning Activities, Social Learning Activities, Content Effectiveness

Concluding the article – the process of lockdown is a good step for controlling the Virus COVID-19. In this crucial time, we can keep the learning going on by various e-learning methods, despite various drawbacks and challenges. Students, learners, and faculty members, teachers and instructors together can fight with this situation by honestly playing our role. 

Lastly, no Lockdown, no virus, no adverse condition can stop us from learning- the learning must go on….

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