Manipal University, which has been one of India’s premier institutions in terms of advancements in educational technology, has now made moves towards digital education. On Monday, Manipal Institute of Technology launched their virtual classrooms programme which is an initiative that is aimed at providing access to high quality education to students who are from the more desperate of the country. Another key aim of this launch is to provide the education at a very economical level. The sessions under the virtual classrooms would be attended by various students from across the country who would interact in the classroom and with the faculty in a real-time manner. This programme would also provide some grounding for the current government’s digital education initiatives.
What the Platform has in store
The Virtual Classrooms programme was launched on Monday at Manipal Institute of Technology (MIT)’s Sir MV Seminar Hall. The major efforts in the development of this system have been behind ensuring that the tool allows for effective teaching as well as learning for students who wouldn’t traditionally have access to high quality education avenues. Dr. Ranjan Pai, who is the CEO and Managing director of MEMG Bangalore, was the one who demonstrated the platform live in front of the gathering, as he did this he talked about how the best use of this technology would truly enrich learning and that this tool should not be limited to students from remote areas but instead be seen as a connection between instructors and students who wish to learn a bit more.
Manipal University is looking at linking their campuses in Sikkim, Jaipur and Dubai through this platform moving forward. The Pro-Chancellor of Manipal University, Dr. H.S. Ballal has spoken about the technology being used in the classroom that could inherently change the fundamental and established concepts of teaching, instruction as well as learning in a classroom. He would also go on to advise the various heads of institutions in attendance as well as those who would read about this technology to make effective use of the facility provided by the platform to really bolster your learning experience provided to students.
The University purposely started the platform off in the MV Seminar Hall as they wanted to allow and facilitate the multiple and various institutions which identify themselves under the banner of the University to be a part of this technical platform for education and use it to truly enrich the educational offerings they put out. Students who are from external and remote campuses have the ability to join in on a virtual classroom and interact through audio as well as video which is two-way as well as real-time. This definitely allows for a very bright and luminous experience for the faculty as well as the students and extends the sheer experiences and opinions brought into the classroom.
The learning outcome is in general highly interactive, in some ways more so than a traditional classroom, making them very inclusive and fun. The virtual classroom concept would also promote the communication between participants so that there is a healthy amount of collaborative learning where the learning happens in a highly interactive way. In fact a major part of the architecture behind this platform is hinged on the formation of work groups among students. The launch of this platform coincided with the Diamond Jubilee Celebrations of Manipal Institute of Technology.