Online teaching helps reach larger audience

Ravneet Singh

Tribune News Service

Patiala, May 11

With offline classes and seminars suspended for about a year now, discussions that have moved to the online mode bring along their merits and demerits. This has affected practical and hands-on training of students and participants of seminars, and taken the lectures outside the university’s walls, thus involving more audience.

Punjabi University, which regularly organises seminars and discussions on various topics, has shifted to online webinars after classes were first suspended last year. Among many webinars organised online, the one titled, “Basics of photography and mobile photography to shoot like a professional”, was held this week.

The university said the participating students and others were informed about the features of various cameras and photography techniques. The university could not provide hands-on training in photography due to Covid-19 restrictions, but managed to keep the students interested during the whole session, the officials concerned said.

Dr Manjit Singh Bhamrah, head, department of electronics and communication, which organised the webinar, said: “We can’t carry out continuous teaching. Therefore, such webinars are organised to keep students’ interest intact. The trainers explained the participants in detail about the intricacies of camera and mobile camera usage, including the ISO, shutter speed etc.”

He said: “There is no replacement for practical work. But students have become bored while sitting home and such programmes help them divert their mind from a monotonous life.” He added the department planned to hold similar cultural and literary webinars.

The online mode has helped involve people outside the campus bounds as well.

The university today held a webinar to commemorate the birth anniversary of Maharana Pratap. Dr Mohammad Idris, in charge of Maharana Pratap Chair and Head of Department of History, said around 100 scholars from various universities of India and abroad participated in the webinar.

Faculty members said the online mode of holding lectures had created a database worthy of being accessed repeatedly from remote locations. “The content of classes and webinars can be recorded and uploaded on Youtube channels and other sites. It can then easily be accessed by outsiders and university students at later stages. This makes accessing important information easy,” another official said.

The university today also organised a “Gurbani kirtan darbar” through the online mode. The Vice-Chancellor, the Dean Academics, along with SGPC President Jagir Kaur, participated in it.