COVID-19: tech-driven classes to safeguard students
The Singapore headquartered Global Indian International School (GIIS) has commenced virtual classroom for its students in its Noida Campus on 4 Mar 2020, and is following with such set ups in Bangalore, Pune, Surat and Ahmedabad campuses.
The Virtual Classrooms are offering lessons through online video conferencing technologies.
GIIS has recently started virtual classrooms at its campuses in Japan and Singapore in a major technology-driven initiative which comes at a time when schools are being closed to safeguard students from the globally spreading coronavirus or COVID-19.
Rated as the first school in the world to deploy Virtual Classrooms on such a large enterprise scale, India’s CBSE Secretary Anurag Tripathi launched the Noida Virtual Classrooms.
“By introducing Virtual Classrooms for all its students in India, GIIS is doing a great service to the student community,” said Tripathi
In aligning its education delivery during challenging times of novel coronavirus, GIIS will bring a big relief to the parent community, he noted.
“We encourage all CBSE schools, as far as possible, to introduce similar innovative ways for their students to give them an uninterrupted learning experience,” said Tripathi.
“At GIIS, we have incorporated educational technologies that deliver maximum learning impact for every child, and the Virtual Classrooms are a great example of that,” elaborated Arjun Temurnikar, Asst Director of Technology at Global Schools Foundation, the parent group of GIIS.
“Virtual Classrooms facilitate innovation through dynamic exchange of ideas with real life bidirectional interactivity and this makes learning and teaching at GIIS an uninterrupted experience of innovative learning thoughts,” explained Temurnikar.
In view of COVID-19 and to ensure GIIS India students continue to receive education on a seamless basis, the school has put in place several innovative teaching techniques. This way the students can now take advantage keep themselves safe and secure at all times, especially from the coronavirus environment.
GIIS has implemented a Continuity Plan (CP) for its students and teachers to minimize the impact of the virus and minimize disruptions to students in their learning journey.
GIIS schools have taken a number of measures to ensure the safety of students and some of these include temperature screening of all staff, students and visitors to the school, daily temperature checking by parents, and implementing special sanitising of entire schools as per WHO guidelines, on all days.
In Japan, the virtual classrooms were started as the Japanese government had asked all its schools to remain closed for 4 weeks.
Similarly, the virtual classrooms were started in Singapore responding to the health officials approach to the coronavirus scare. The Singapore health officials had allowed schools to continue to operate but under strict health guidelines, that include total prohibition of large gatherings of students at all times.
The ‘VIRTUAL CLASSROOMS’ is a proprietary EduERP system developed by GIIS R&D at its SEZ operations in MIHAN NAGPUR in Maharashtra. It is operated by students of age groups from 5 years to 18 years by simply clicking a secure virtual classroom link within MyGIIS.
GIIS has always been at the forefront of incorporating leading edge educational technology to offer a fully digital learning experience for its students.
The VIRTUAL CLASSROOM was activated in view of coronavirus within just 3 days, said GIIS on 4 Mar 2020.
“The classrooms are very interactive with fully equipped digital smart board displays, easy to use video conferencing, mics for clearer sound etc which enables us to give greater flexibility to our students in case they are unable to attend the class due to any reason,” elaborated GIIS teacher, Dr Shivalik K Pathania, Head of Dept of English.
“This makes the teaching continuous and this keeps all the students abreast of how the class is progressing,” said Dr Pathania.
As part of the Virtual Classrooms, the students have the flexibility to log-in and participate in an on-going class in the school through their mobile phones or any other personal device. Students who are logged-in remotely are able to share their screens to the teacher as well as get the full view of the concepts shared on the digital smartboard.
This helps the students to stay connected with the progress of curriculum in school and manage their time better, especially closer to the exams. From a teacher’s point of view, Virtual Classrooms allow the entire cohort to progress at the same pace even if some students cannot make it to the school. fiinews.com
