Introduction

The leading world diverse towards ICT based teaching learning to make the prevailing education more easy, available, accessible and reliable. No doubt that the education offered in the physical or traditional set up was a real one, but in the 21^st century where the world needs to run more faster in every field, have many risk factors to bear, especially by the instructors or teachers in the field of education where all of the earlier knowledge and experiences reversed by the new set up called virtual teaching learning platform. The virtual teaching learning platform refers to the method of teaching, delivered in online mode by a management system through internet connection. It is a kind of teaching learning environment where the teacher and students meet each other from different locations in a stipulated time on a meeting platform. The students who are unable to attend real time class can also access recordings of teaching and study that at their convenient time indirectly. In the traditional method of teaching however, the teachers and students were gathered altogether, shared everyone’s views, peer learning, face to face communication, doubt clearing, sincerity, competition, reteach, relearn, classwork, homework, discipline, punctuality, administrative rules and so on were followed by all the members of same institution. But the online education is open one. Students have to follow their own judgement, no force and no course to be imposed upon them. They might be self-motivated. As the teachers as well as learners have the habit of delivering or getting education in traditional method since long years, the shifting to online mode may have lots of difficulty on their way in achieving goal oriented learning outcome. They need to make the strategy of methodological implication in application of knowledge in proper perspective. Alvin Toffler (1990), a futurist American writer, has discussed about modern technologies such as digital revolution, communication revolution and so on and rightly says that the illiterate of the 21^st century will not be those who cannot read and write, but those who cannot learn, unlearn, and relearn. So, the teachers should be more conscious about their knowledge on the topic before forwarding to the students. He might unlearn to relearn the topic to understand it from different points of view and to make root of conception stronger.

Methodological Implications for Language Use

In traditional learning, various methods and approaches applied to teach language to generate effectiveness. Some of them are of course strange, unfamiliar, hard to locate, obscurely written, difficult to understand and so on, in spite of easy going for many (Richards & Rodgers, 1986). However, the teacher can choose methods and materials for language learning according to the needs of the learner. They experiment all the evolving approaches and methods like translation method, audio-lingual method, structural method, direct method, oral approach, situational language teaching, community language learning, and so on for the efficacy in the classroom and for total understanding by the learners. But many of these methods took lots of time to settle down in the classroom and confirm students’ learning especially in the non-native countries like India. However, in the online classroom, deliberation of lectures and methodological implications take new turn and go beyond all the hazes of the past. It demands effectiveness in transformation of information and pursue total accuracy, fluency, ability to technological inclusions, clear and flawless assessment and so on. It also demands flexibility so that no learner would be left without learning. They must able to learn the recorded classes without assistance of the instructor at their time of convenience. It would be possible only if the instructor use right tools like designing the course material for goal oriented learning outcome in the target language at any circumstances like live class or recording class as per demand of the students.

Methodology of Online learning mode

Online mode may be of different kinds: synchronous, asynchronous, blended or hybrid, and collaborative etc. The salient points of each category are mentioned below:

Synchronous

• Direct contact between teacher and students.

• Learning activity is done together at the same time.

• Students can ask questions or clear their doubts.

• They can do discussions.

• Regular practice is done at the prefixed time.

• Time or schedule is maintained

Asynchronous

• Indirect contact between teacher and students.

• No live class.

• Pre-recorded lectures videos, audios, lecture note, e-mail etc. produced.

• Flexible: students can study at any time and from any place.

• It is very helpful for those students who cannot attend scheduled sessions.

• Study materials can be accessed 24 hours per day or 7 days per week.

• Some students may have problems in family environment. They can go for this mode of learning.

• This mode is utilized in the comfort zone of the students.

• No issue of network problem or technological problem.

• Relaxed schedule: no hard and fast schedule of class but students should have completed the class work or assignment within the course duration for timely evaluation.

• There may be a provision of weekly or monthly ‘check-in’ hour virtually during office hours to check the students’ progress.

Blended or hybrid learning

• It includes both synchronous and asynchronous learning.

• Some students attend class physically while others join the class virtually from home or other places at the same time using tools like video-conferencing.

• Very useful for the courses like nursing, engineering, medical profession, visual art, social work etc. where both theory and practical is necessary to do.

Collaborative learning

• Team work: physical training, project work etc.

• Multiple students work together for the same target.

• Use communicational tools like whatsapp, twitter, Instagram etc. for group message or discussion

Methodology Tools

Synchronous Instructional Tool

This is the replicate of traditional classroom but not in physical form. Each and every individual from different place and corner close together to communicate, make discussion and realize real time learning. Instructors adopt technology based tools like simulation and gamification for skill development and maintain both audio and video while they do their part in one way. Students’ interruption in between may spoil the lecture. They have their engaging time separately or may use live chat to get answers of their doubts. The teachers have to be more conscious about the students whether they are properly doing their classes or not. So, regular assessment or test after every class is necessary as well.

Asynchronous Instructional Tool

This type of instruction is prepared for those students who have generally various issues like single gadget at home to be used by everyone, poor internet connection in the residing area, no active data pack in the gadget, slow learners who may need to see the same lectures for many times for better understanding and so on. The instructors can prepare this as a recording form of lecture for each single topic followed by question answers or tests. They can make it with the help of power point, picture share, video share, google form etc. Students have to download the pre-recorded lectures to go through the class and do assignments.

Online platforms

In online education, creative and effective teaching platform is very necessary for organizing lecture plans, preparing contents, student assessment, feedback, tracking students’ progress, reporting, monitoring, quizzes, tests, evaluating, grading and so on. Some of the popular online classroom platforms are: Socrative, Easy class, Google form, Kahoot, Edmodo, Padlet etc.

To prepare creativity content for classroom practice like designing graphics, videos, photos, icons, games, animations etc. the teacher or students can take help from various apps like Canva, Crello, Prezi, Powtoon, Visme, Whiteboard, Toontastic etc. For recording voice lecture Free Cam, Loom etc. can be used as a tool. For organizing virtual classroom or video conferencing Google Meet, Zoom, Big Blue Button, Go to Webinar, Cisco Web Ex, Adobe Connect, Google Hangout etc. are the popular webs to be used.

Moreover, there are numbers of online learning portals launched by Government or Private sectors in India, for e.g. e-Gyankosh, Gyandhara, Swayam, SwayamPrabha, e-PG Pathsala, NPTEL Portal etc. for higher education sector; Bharat skills, eskillIndia, NASSCOM etc. for skill education; e-patashala, Diksha, NROER etc. for secondary education.

Comparison between Offline Learning Method and Online Learning Method

Online teaching is a next level of teaching than to the traditional method of teaching done in offline mode. Here, difference is categorized.

Risk Factors of Online Use

When the ‘New Normal Situation’ is internet or online system, the students have to limit them in some corner out of open environment of the contemporary educational system. It may also carry lots of disadvantages which cannot be unnoticed or kept apart. Some of them are pointed below:

• Physical development decreases. Students cannot play, socialize, entertain, or culture together. Only staying or peeping in front of computer may affect students’ health as well as mind.

• Lots of stress on eyes and mind. It may also cause headache, back ache, insomnia, anxiety and many other physical and mental problems.

• Lack of technological knowledge may cause inappropriate operation or it may lead to cyber-crime.

• Students may divert towards other unhealthy social media easily available on the internet. Quite often when they search out google, you tube channel, face book, Instagram etc. some unwanted advertise pop up to attract which may distract them easily to other site.

• They may be trapped in criminal activities like cyber-crime, hacking, black mailing etc.

• The digital aids like Hardware and Software can be damaged by viruses, spyware, phishing, hacking, bullying and so on if not protected by antivirus software.

• Any incorrect information (knowing/unknowingly) provided by the teacher may face lots of questions from the audience. He/she may be suspended from teaching by the higher authority.

• Many good but lazy students are not self-directed. They need someone to be pushed them. In online way, they get relaxed and not motivated to learn. Both reward and punishment is absent here.

Recommendations

• Technology education should be made a compulsory subject from early education.

• Easy Technique should be developed to operate any educational apparatus by the young learners and develop creativity without taking help from elderly person.

• Separate internet connection facility should be made for students so that they can only search educational contents in it, and do not involve in any social, anti-social, or cyber activities.

• Government should provide students (especially from below poverty line (BPL) category) a gadget like Tablet to take class with a required data pack for learning, instead of distributing free vehicle like scootty, bicycle etc. (that is distributed to students, e.g. in Assam, in India).

• Parents should set up privacy setting in digital aids, so that their wards cannot enter unwanted/prohibited website without permission. They can also put password to protect apps in their gadget.

• Instead of adhesive to merely synchronous or asynchronous learning, blended learning could be given more preference for students’ both physical and virtual engagement.

• There should be some short term training programmes or professional development programmes for teachers to be competent and skilful in delivering lectures in any mode of teaching.

Conclusion

As New Education Policy (2020) of India also gives emphasis on blended education system, both the teachers and learners should be ready to go with the flow. Though present situation demands online practice, traditional education also has different value which cannot be denied totally. The teachers should learn to use technology based education for smooth running of the programmes. As no instrument can replace a teacher, so, each and every person involving in educational field should use proper method to develop them along with technology to create innovative, effective, attractive teaching learning strategy out of their creation.

References

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