Blended mode of teaching here to stay: Minister

Thiuvananthapuram: A blended mode of teaching — combination of traditional classroom teaching and online classes — would be the new normal in the post Covid era. Teaching community should equip themselves to make better use of the imperative change, said higher education minister K T Jaleel here on Monday. He was inaugurating a five-day online workshop on virtual teaching, organized by the faculty development centre under the state higher education council.
“We all know that virtual teaching cannot substitute classroom teaching.Nonetheless, in the current circumstance of physical distancing, virtual teaching/learning is the sole alternative,” said the minister.
Covid-19 pandemic has resulted in transformation and diversification of educational technology and tools., said council vice-chairman Rajan Gurukkal.
In the first slot N J Rao (IISc), Rajanikanth and Chandrasekhar (IIIT, Bengaluru) initiated the teachers in the use of online instructional methods/tools. Madhusoodhanan (VC, Cusat) and Sabu Thomas (VC, MGU) would engage the classes in the coming days of the workshop that seeks to cover areas like software-driven course designing, web-based instruction, computer-mediated communication, mind mapping, administration of videos, imaging technology, infographic visualization, hosting the audio/video podcasts, effective management of digital content, and instructional system model.
The workshop run through Cisco Webex would involve instructions on the Zoom, Google Talk, Google Hangouts, Google Classroom, Google Docs, Google Forms, Google Meet etc., beside open source platforms such as Swayam and Moodle.
KSHEC plans to train 2,500 teachers before January 2021, said council member secretary Rajan Varghese.