A unique, innovative, user friendly App to facilitate On Line Education
Rajnish Sareen
Mohali, July 06, 2020: Necessity is the mother of invention. As the pandemic COVID-19 has forced the closure of schools , there is no alternative other than the digital route to reach out to the students to provide them facility of education through virtual classes. The Education Department, it seems, has virtually been beating the best in ensuring optimum utilisation of the advanced IT technology in reaching out to the students to cater to their educational needs. The virtual classes through various TV / Radio channels, You tube, Whats App, Google Apps, Skype / Zoom App etc. are going on since the start of Lock Down .
Now, with a view to giving a fillip to " On Line Education", the Education Department is all set to launch an innovative initiative in form of " Punjab Educare App" soon. The study material for the students from Pre primary to 12th would be just a click away for the teachers and students.
This App is one stop solution to the problems of accessibility of the study material. It would provide systematically arranged study material including text books, video lessons, daily assignments in all the subjects. It is user friendly app and put an end to the worry of losing of useful study material that is being provided by the education department on daily basis. The App would be an additional tool for the teachers and students. It would be a store- house of all the learning material. The teachers and students can have hassle free access to the syllabus, text books in PDF form, video lectures, worksheets, assignments, quizzes etc. It would help both the teachers and students to recapitulate any topic whenever they want.
"It is user friendly, compact and easy to access and encourages perfect coordination among teachers and students", say Chander Shekhar, Jaswinder Singh, Deepak Kumar and Harjit Bawa, a team of teachers, instrumental in developing the App , while divulging details about the features of the App. It includes " Teachers'Station' , " Students' Corner", " Word Of the Day', "Udaan". While accessing the Educare App, one can visit the desired section and select the class and subject of his / her choice to have an hassle free access to the required study material, they added.
Moreover, with a view to making its officials and teachers well versed in the use of the advanced IT applications , the Punjab Education Department has launched a " Capacity Building" programme for accelerating the pace of qualitative improvement in the education.
Under it, a series of webinars for imparting on line training to the officials and teachers has been started. It is worthwhile to mention here that a team of Resource Persons , that too belonging to the Education Department, is imparting training through webinars regarding the know how of latest Information Technology Applications including Punjab Educare App etc.
" Though the Pandemic COVID-19 has forced the closure of schools, but the Education Department has virtually transformed the unprecedented challenge into an opportunity to tap advanced sources of Information Technology. Our dedicated teachers have been doing commendable job in making the " Ghar Baithe Sikhiya" Programme successful. It is the need of the hour that all the officials and the teachers should come of their inhibitions regarding use of latest IT Applications as the new innovative methodology would continue to be fruitful even after the pandemic is over". It is very easy and enjoyable experience when we start learning the use of these applications ", said the Education Secretary, Krishan Kumar, while exhorting the officials and teachers to become tech savvy to further strengthen the qualitative improvement in the school education as we have the capacity as well as the determination to beat the best in ensuring optimum utilisation of the advanced technology. It is quite evident from the fact that the Education Department has not felt the necessity of outsourcing the IT experts for the " Capacity Building" programme. The dedicated tech savvy teachers are doing a commendable job as Resource Persons too.