Best performing educational tools and Platforms during Lockdown

Best Performing Educational Tools and Platforms During Lockdown

The largest COVID-19 national lockdown in the world has come to an end in major parts of the country and unlock 1.0 has begun. But, Colleges, schools and academic institutions are still closed due to the Pandemic. Due to this, a huge number of students and teachers are facing the problem. Looking at this challenge of colleges and schools being shut, I have compiled a list of educational tools and online portals which helped students and teachers to carry on their studies.

These were hard times with no access to book shops, libraries and other teaching resources. During these times some organizations stood up and provided means for children to carry on with their studies and teachers to continue teaching and assessing students. These Organizations provided this facility either absolutely free of cost or at a very minimal price. Together they all made a very positive impact as they stood up against the COVID crisis. After thorough research and analysis, I have compiled a list of 10 such private service providers who reached out to masses and ensured that the education continued.

The lockdown has accelerated adoption of digital technology. Business houses, IT companies, educational institutes and schools have been forced to work in tandem and improve in quality and delivery time to handle such situations.

Education in Covid-19

Here is a perfect time to explore and deploy new tools and software to make education delivery meaningful to students who can’t go to campuses. It’s an opportunity to be more effective and productive while developing new and advanced professional skills and knowledge through online learning and assessment.

It is also a fact that the use of technology in education is resulting in different concepts in the system, for instance, the move from teacher-centric education to student-centric education.

I have been talking about virtual classrooms and various online tools today allow us to make the engagement between the teacher and students as close to a real, in classroom-type experience, as possible. Going forward, these tools can also make the teachers and parent meetings as well as staff/management meetings more time and cost-saving while providing the necessary interactivity.

                        Digital Education in Lockdown

Hundreds of digital educational tools were created to give autonomy to the student, improve the administration of academic processes, encouraging collaboration, and facilitating communication between teachers and learners.

These tools and apps for formative assessment success give teachers and students many options and opportunities for classroom success. There is no shortage of strategies, techniques, and tools available to teachers and students.

I have compiled an extensive list of digital tools, apps, and platforms that can help teachers and students use formative assessment to elicit evidence of student learning.

Just as a reference point, we do have a few criteria for tools that get added to this list,

• Support instructional strategies and ways to activate students to be resources for themselves and peers.
• Free or requires a paid subscription.
• Ideally, both students and teachers can take the activator role in using them; however, sometimes teachers may need to get things started.

1. Edmodo

Edmodo is an educational tool that connects academicians and learners and is assimilated into a social network. In this, teachers can design online collaborative groups and provide educational material, measure student performance, and interact with parents, with other functions. Edmodo has more than 34 million users who join to create a learning process that is more enriching, personalized, and aligned with the opportunities brought by technology and the digital environment.

2. Easy Test Generator

Easy test maker is an online test generating tool to help you seamlessly design and execute tests online. It is meant for academicians who have to create and conduct tests regularly for their students. The generated test papers are directly sent to the registered email id only thereby giving users complete peace of mind that their generated question papers cannot fall in wrong hands. The test papers with all the questions fill in the blanks, long answer, short answer, match the columns, etc are perfectly arranged with marks, choices and other instructions.

3. Socrative

Designed by a group of entrepreneurs and engineers passionate about education, Socrative is a system that allows teachers to create exercises or educational games which students can solve using mobile devices, whether smartphones, laptops, or tablets. Teachers can see the results of the activities and, depending on these, modify the subsequent lessons to make them more personalized.

4. EBooks Library by Pragati Prakashan

Libraries are the storehouse of knowledge as they maintain the book and other knowledge resources available - mostly in printed form, However, With the advent of digital technology and Internet connectivity, the library scenario is changing fast. Pragati Prakashan has a huge collection of academic textbooks & reference books. These books are free to read in the lockdown period. 

5. TED-Ed

TED-Ed is an educational platform that allows creating educational lessons with the collaboration of teachers, students, animators—generally people who want to expand knowledge and good ideas. This website allows democratizing access to information, both for teachers and students. Here, people can have active participation in the learning process of others.

6. BYJU’s

BYJU'S offers effective learning programs for classes 1 - 12 (K-12), and aspirants of competitive exams like JEE, IAS etc. The BYJU’S Learning Programs provide students with a holistic learning experience. Students across regions can access the best teachers and see concepts come to life. Every aspect of a student’s journey is planned and executed at the deepest level with subject matter experts, teachers and tools like videos, interactive animations, quizzes and assessments.

7. Khan Academy

Khan Academy is a non-profit company that was conceptualised to build a spectrum of online tools that can help students understand various lessons and concepts more easily. They produce short lessons in the form of videos on the Khan Academy’s YouTube™ channel. Their website also incorporates supplementary practise exercises and materials for teachers. Lessons are presented by way of videos, interactive activities, and challenges. Hence, educators can make use of Khan Academy to supplement their teaching and also provide extra work to your students and help them with all or difficult content.

8. BrainMate Publication

BrainMate believes that all children should have access to good academic books that engage, inform and open their minds to worlds beyond their own. They have a collection of best-selling children books and academic textbooks titles. From beautiful books for toddlers and pre-schoolers to curriculum books for beginners and early readers to our Classic series for middle graders, we have it all. Kids can also have fun with our activity books and worksheets. In this lockdown scenario, they are providing free eBooks to teachers and students even if their books are not recommended by the school. You can get access to free eBooks through their official website.

9. Test Moz

Test Moz is a premium tool used by teachers and academicians to create test paper online. Through Test Moz, a faculty can create and distribute tests paper online and you can see how everyone performed. You can search, sort, filter, partition, tag, archive, print, and email the results. You can dive into a student's results to see all their answers, leave feedback on their responses, and manually adjust their scores. 

10. Kahoot

It is a game-based learning platform where students can learn via games or, ‘Kahoots,’ which are multiple-choice quizzes. With this digital tool, which can be accessed via a web browser, teachers can draft extra questionnaires, discussions online with academic lessons. The material can be then projected in the classrooms and questions are answered by students while playing and learning at the same time. This not only enhances student engagement but also creates a dynamic, social, and fun educational environment.

Government of India Initiative

e-Pathshala a portal initiated by the Ministry of Human Resource Development and National Council of Educational Research and Training was launched in November 2015 as one of the initiatives of Digital India campaign. E-pathshala is a gigantic educational reserve that hosts resources for teachers, students, parents, researchers and educators which is available on multiple platforms such as Web, Android, IOS and Windows platforms. The students can get access of all the required material, including textbooks, audio, video, periodicals and a variety of other print and non-print materials through E-Pathshala and can be downloaded by the user for offline use with absolutely no limits on downloads. 

There are various other Digital Learning programmes along with e-Paathshaala,

1.      SWAYAM: Study Webs of Active Learning for Young Aspiring Minds.

2.      Swayam Prabha

3.      National Digital Library

4.      Ational Academic Depository

5.      E-Shodh Sindhu

6.      E-yantra

Going forward, the use of technology in teaching or recruitment will lead to a new era wherein the best of faculty will be available from across the globe to students. Education quality will be gauged not just by the quality of faculty but will also have the quality of IT infrastructure and familiarization of the faculty will digital teaching technologies as important parameters.

Blog By:

Vishal Chauhan
MBA (Marketing & Sales)
B.Tech (Computer Science & Technology)