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Digital education has a future in coming years says Dr. Gajendra Singh, Vice President, ICRI Group, Delhi in an interview with Pratik Ghosh, ArdorComm Media Group. During the pandemic there has been a huge shift in the mode of teaching and learning, what’s your take on this? Based on my experience, I’m pretty much clear that in coming 10 years’ time you will see digital education is moving ahead, though we are habitual of these normal learning methods but now corona has taught us a lot, that we are going to move into digital era. We are adapting those technologies and of course this digital education has a future in coming years. What according to you are the difference which the students face in online education compared to the physical mode of education? When we are trying to learn in physical environment specially when it comes to practical sessions, those are more interactive. People have more learning environment but when we are talking of digital environment now there are so many ed-tech companies which are coming up and trying to bring such platforms which brings easy environment. Though it will take time because we are still learning, still we are doing practices and still we are yet to learn from this platform. I strongly believe that traditional training was wonderful but gradually you will see that students will be habitual of online platforms and it will save their money, time and it will bring more effectiveness.

Going forward the new normal is going to be blended learning where physical togetherness is going to complement the content and the skill part which could be delivered through the digital mediums says Dr. Kamal Kishore Sharma, Director General, Taxila Business School, Jaipur in an interview with Pratik Ghosh, ArdorComm Media Group. What’s your take on the new normal education? While the new normal boarders on digitization and blended learning, my firm take is that the learning really happens in a physical environment. So while the new normal will bring in more technologies, more options for the students to learn their skills but there are certain skills in life for example how to analyze, how to understand a behavior in a certain context, interact with people, how to communicate, how to spread across your thought process and argue around it, what you have been able to think in your mind all of that happens during an interaction process and that requires a physical togetherness of students. So, to me the new normal is about a new realization of how important it is to look at this development of the software aspect of students. Now that most of the content is being able to be provided by technology and Google so going forward the new normal is going to be blended learning where physical togetherness is going to complement the content and the skill part which could be delivered through the digital mediums. How did your institution adapt to the online mode of education when the pandemic hit the world? The first thing that was required was to engage the students because each student as well as the faculty and the whole ecosystem was in a state of stress induced by the pandemic and the lockdowns. So, the very first thing that the institution could do was to reach out to the candidates, second was in order to keep the learning process going on we had to bring on technology in order to reach out to the students. So, simultaneously there were lot of options in the zoom, meets, BlueSky and everything that came in. The other part of it one, the local infrastructure of how you could use those web technologies, so we brought in the best of cameras, mics and everything and we created a studio in the college itself where the least of noise interference would happen so that was important. Two, was to create multiple platforms together in that studio so that on one hand while you will be able to show what you want to show as a content, you’ll also be able to interact with the students face to face. So, there were two mediums working on simultaneously. Third, was to get into a faculty development program wherein we had to imbibe everything else that was happening around the world in terms of how to engage students in an online classroom. So, those regular inputs on that front, together these three saw us through the most difficult period during the pandemic. Going forward these things will stay with us, the technology will stay with us, the infrastructure will stay with us but clearly we have been able to identify that digital can only go to a certain extent, that is being talked about as new normal but the importance of physical togetherness and interaction and the values, the human soft skills that you learn from it, there is no other way to do that even in a new normal.

In digital platforms we were able to deliver much more than the physical classroom, says Prof. Dr. Daviender Narang, Director, Jaipuria Institute of Management, Ghaziabad in an interview with Pratik Ghosh, ArdorComm Media Group. What is your take on the new normal mode of education and how has your Institute implemented the same to impart education during the unprecedented times? Well during the pandemic, to teach the teachers how to use the new platform for teaching, how they should use the tools for creating the content, for delivering the lectures, for engaging the student was very important and on the same side for student also, we trained them, we made them ready for how to use these tools. So, within a very short span of time everybody was on the same platform so that they can learn from each other. We are very happy that in the whole pandemic we didn’t lose any time or any curriculum which we couldn’t deliver. In digital platforms we were able to deliver much more than the physical classroom, so that was our experience so far. How does education events and gatherings like this helps the education fraternity? In the new normal event everyone is talking about the digital transformation, digital content, the tools and about the challenges so there is a deliberation of all the experts and we are learning from each other. While listening to the discussions there was some new experience they shared with new pedagogy which they experienced, which they delivered in their respective universities and institutions, so that is our takeaway. So, by deliberation of all the people, a new knowledge is creating and everybody is getting that knowledge so when they get back to their own places they will implement this and that’s the important thing.

Dr. B. Sendil Kumar, Dean and Director, School of Allied Health Sciences, Vinayaka Mission’s Research Foundation (Deemed to be University) tells about how they transformed education from physical to digital in an interview with Pratik Ghosh, ArdorComm Media Group. How did you transform the education in your university during the pandemic? Covid 19 is a pandemic and nobody expected that it would shut everything and the education sector as well. What we exactly did is that we switch over all the education to digital mode because we had already started with the digital mode with the use of software which is LMS platform (Learning Management System) where everything is through that portal. We had started taking that online mode to all the students because already we were trying the faculties and students to get into that, through Microsoft Teams we have started doing that. Apart from that we have asked our students to take up courses like Coursera, edX where they can take up courses which is available in the curriculum. So, by the time students start writing their examination, we have incorporated that in our curriculum so everything is settled properly. How does this kind of conferences and education summits help the entire education fraternity? This is a platform where you can meet all the eminent persons and get to know their thoughts and views. Since this is a Covid 19 pandemic so you get to know the information like how other universities and institutions are taking up the challenges and how they are implementing all these things. It’s a good event where we can learn a lot of things, so the takeaways are like we can take a lot of information and we can implement them in our institutions so it’s a great opportunity actually.