About the Inter-collegiate Online Faculty Development Program
This inter-collegiate online Faculty Development Program on The Best Practices for Online Teaching: Classrooms Courseware and Tools was organized by the IQAC of Mar Sleeva College of Arts and Science, Murickassery in association with ipsr solutions limited, Kottayam.
The sessions were delivered through live webinars and also through hands-on activities through deQ Learning, the Learning Management Portal (LMS) of IPSR.
This was a hands-on workshop on the basics of Moodle-based LMS administration and setting up a self-contained learning module which is developed in line with the Outcome-Based Education Pedagogical approach. These equipped educators with the digital technology-enhanced teaching and facilitation of self-directed learning
Organizing Committee
The organizing committee consisted of Dr Joshy Varghese – Principal, Fr. Thomas Thoompumkal – Administrator and Mr. Jobin Joseph, IQAC Coordinator of Mar Sleeva College of Arts and Science Murikkassery.
Resource Persons
The resource persons were for the webinar were Dr Mendus Jacob, M.Sc, M.Phil, PhD, MloD Director – MCA, Marian College, Kuttikkonam (Autonomous). Former Director of School of Applicable Mathematics, M.G. University. M.D & C.E.O – IPSR & Valin Technologies, U.K. Academician and Entrepreneur with 30+ years of experience.Dr Sunil Job K.A, M.Sc, M.Ed, M.Phil, PhD, RHCE Adjunct Faculty, Marian College, Kuttikkonam (Autonomous) Former College Principal and an OBE Specialist Blogger and Resource person for National conferences Chief of Academic Solutions -IPSR Academician with 2S+ years of experience. Dr Brijesh George John, PGDMM, M.Sc., MBA, PhD Associate Professor and Corporate Relations Manager at Marian College, Kuttikanam (Autonomous) International career consultant, soft skills trainer and Youtuber Dy.GM – IPSR and Head – IPSR Jobs Academician with 20+ years of experience.
About Mar Sleeva College of Arts and Science
Mar Sleeva College of Arts and Science, affiliated to Mahatma Gandhi University, is a pioneering self-financing institute of higher education situated at Murickasserry in the Idukki district of Kerala. The College was established in 2012 by the endeavour of the corporate Educational Agency, Diocese of Idukki, to impart education to the young generation of high ranges where higher education is still a distant dream to many aspiring youths.
The Institution envisages opening windows to the big horizon of opportunities by equipping the youth with proper attitude and competence. The college offers 11 courses across 5 streams namely Commerce & Banking, Arts, Science, Management, IT and across 9 degrees like B. Sc, B.Com, BCA, BA and BBA and 2 PG courses – M.Com and MSW.
About ipsr solutions limited
Led by a team of academicians and entrepreneurs, IPSR is a public limited IT company with 22+ years of expertise in Software Product Development and Training services. During the last 2 decades, IPSR has worked with over 500 academic organisations, including Universities, Autonomous Colleges, and Technical and Non-technical institutions. IPSR conducts Faculty Development Training, Seminars, Workshops, Add-on Courses, Corporate Training and Job oriented Training in Education, IT & ITeS domains. They have served as the Training partner for the Technical Education Quality Improvement Program (TEQIP) – a World Bank assisted project – executed in Government Engineering Colleges by the Ministry of HRD. IPSR’s IT services division is a pioneer in the development of Academic solution products that help to manage academic and operational activities like Question Paper generation, Campus Automation, Accreditation processes (NAAC, NBA etc.), and OBE (Outcome Based Education) etc.
FDP Outcomes
The FDP Outcomes were planned in such a way so that on completion of this FDP, the participants will be able to demonstrate the following skills
- Apply the various Moodle functionalities and competencies in online learning.
- Use Moodle platform for course designing, set effective assessments and fostering student-teacher interaction.
- Integrate various learning and technological support systems with Moodie.
- Operate Moodle with a higher level of proficiencies by knowing its limitations.
Day 1: Moodle Administration
The program was started with an introductory speech by Father Thomas Thoompumkal administrator of Mar sleeva college of arts and science and followed by a session on Moodle by Dr Sunil Job K.A, M.Sc, M.Ed, M.Phil, PhD, RHCE Chief of AcademiX Solutions β IPSR, Former College Principal and an OBE Specialist, Blogger and Resource person for National conferences. An academician with 25+ years of experience for the first two days of the FDP program.
A one-hour interactive session on Moodle Administration and customization was handled by Dr Sunil Job k. The Moodle (modular object-oriented dynamic learning environment) is an open-source software package for course management and learning platform.
Level of Knowledge in Moodle Administration
A poll was conducted among faculty members about their knowledge level in Moodle on the first day. Nearly 50 % of the participants were new to Moodle and a few of them had only some basic knowledge of Moodle administration.
The Main Focus Areas of the FDP session were
- Creation of a Moodle site
- Creation of users
- Creation of course
- Preparation of grade book
- Student Enrollment
This session was very helpful for faculty members to make their own moodle site. User creation was explained in detail followed by doubt clarification related to designing and customizing different types of courses. All faculty members who were new to the moodle site created their site with the help of Dr Sunil Job K during the live session itself. The day ended with configuring a personal moodle site using gnomio.com.
Day2: Moodle Customization
As a continuation of the first day, the second day was also handled by Dr. Sunil Job K.A. The major discussion for the second day was based on the course creation, preparation of the grade book and student enrollment. Adding different resources to the course including videos, ppt was described with live examples.
Students’ enrollment in different courses was illustrated. The evaluation process of students’ assignments through Moodle was illustrated. Integration of the grade book with different activities for the students was explained. The discussion forums in Moodle were a very useful feature for student interaction.
Day3: Benefits of YouTube for Teachers
Dr Brijesh George John, PGDMM, M.Sc., MBA, PhD Associate Professor and Corporate Relations Manager at Marian College, Kuttikanam (Autonomous) International career consultant, soft skills trainer and Youtuber Dy.GM – IPSR and Head – IPSR Jobs Academician with 20+ years of experience
led the third day of the session. The session was mainly focusing on the benefits of youtube for teachers.
The major discussion points were as follows
- The different benefits of YouTube for teachers
- How to start a YouTube channel
- How teachers can become good influencers in their field of interest.
- Different video promotion tips
The session was very engaging and interesting for faculty members as a lot of participants were interested in starting a YouTube channel. The session ended up with a Doubt clearance from different faculty members.
Day4: Different Interactive learning tools
The Fourth day of the session was handled by Dr Mendus Jacob ( Director, MCA, Marian College Kuttikkanam Autonomous). The session started with an interesting question to the faculty members asking the challenges they faced during the online training. And their answers were presented through an interesting word cloud format.
Based on the answers different problems faced by the faculty members were discussed during the session. And he came up with some interesting tools to make the teaching and learning process interesting and innovative.
Interesting Presentations through Mentimeter
The Mentimeter was the initial discussion topic. Mentimeter is used for creating interactive presentations for teaching or a meeting. Integration of moodle with Mentimeter was depicted through a video presentation. The different creative features of Mentimeter for Interactive online learning were illustrated with live examples.
The second interactive tool was Padlet. The Padlet is a creative tool to enhance interactivity in the teaching and learning process. The creative ways of using the Padlet were explained during the session with an illustration.
A Padlet is useful for students participating in collaborative research of a topic. To help organize the board, students can post new questions about their interesting topic, and as they find answers (or more questions) during the research process, they can post them under each question. The Padlets can be made more secure with passwords. The Padlets can be shared on a google meet or social media directly. It can be exported as pdf, image or as CSV files easily.
Day5: Best practices for Implementing Interactive tools
Day five was a continuation of the previous day by Dr. Mendus Jacob. A task was given to provide the course outcome and quality check of the desired course. A live task was given to the participants. The main area of discussion was
- Best practices to follow when Implementing Interactive tools
- Digital Disruptions in Education
- NEP Highlights
- ABC Key Highlights
- Traditional v/s OBE education
Another interesting Mentimeter poll was created asking about the preferred mode of teaching to the faculty members
What will be the preferred mode of teaching in future
About 97% of them responded to a blended model of physical and online mode.The different problem faced during the E-learning was discussed during the session. The Importance of Data Analytics in e-learning was discussed during the session. A brief discussion based on different Google tools like Google lens, Google jamboard for e-learning was discussed during the session.
Wrapping up
Interactive online learning is a result of a systematic, planned development process. Before creating an eLearning course, all need to be aware of the techniques and tools for online learning. The FDP program conducted by ipsr solutions limited at Mar sleeva college of Arts and science was a successful event. The training received a lot of positive responses. The interactive and hands-on experience providing sessions was the main highlight of the FDP program.
Handbook on The Best Practices for Online Teaching: Classrooms, Courseware and Tools
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deQ Learning is the customized implementation of the famous Moodle Learning Management System(LMS), along with the right mix of technical and pedagogical consultancy to suit the requirements of the HEI.