Indian Journal of Educational Technology
Volume 2 No. 2, July 2020

161

Communication

My Experiments with Technology
Shruti Tripathi

Assistant Professor, English, R.I.E, NCERT, Bhopal, Madhya Pradesh
Email: shruti05071980@gmail.com

The COVID-19 pandemic left the gamut 
of teachers and students in a state of 
crisis. The pandemic which struck mid-
session left courses and assessment 
incomplete. With no access to schools 
and colleges it became difficult to reach 
out to students. Technology has played 
a major role in bringing teachers and 
students together. It has provided a 
common platform that could serve as 
a binding element and helping all in 
this moment of instability. During this 
crucial point technology has served as 
a boon not only to the people who are 
adept in its use but also to people who 
have been limited users of it. Such is 
the nature of technology, that it makes 
tasks easier and absolutely friendly.

I have used a number of applications in 
my virtual classrooms that I created for 
the teaching learning process to go on 
smoothly and effectively. Here is a list 
of the assistive technology that I have 
been making use of - 
1. Google Classroom - A Learning 

Management System (LMS) is the 
first pre-requisite for the smooth 
functioning of any virtual platform. 
The Google Classroom provides 
a perfect environment for this 
purpose. Forming classrooms and 
adding students and teachers as 
fellow collaborators is a very easy 
task. Further it also provides a 
comfortable environment to send 
study material, assignments, videos 
and quizzes to the students for 

their perusal. Forming Rubrics for 
the purpose of assessment makes 
the process a cakewalk. Finding 
everything in one place i.e. in the 
Google Drive makes everything 
very systematic and convenient. 
One element found missing in the 
Classroom is that it does not allow 
parents to participate as key stake 
holders, which I consider is a very 
integral part of the whole process of 
learning.

2. Bandicam- Bandicam is a light 
weight screen capturing application 
for windows. The process of making 
videos through the screen capturing 
function is rather effective and 
easy. Making PPTs and converting 
them into videos with an audio 
video screen capture turns out to 
be efficient and is interactive too. 
Bandicam comes with a very bold 
watermark in the free version of the 
application. To avoid this one will 
have to purchase the paid version 
of it.

3. Virtual Meetings- Meetings with 
individual classes were scheduled 
on a regular basis. Most of these 
meetings were done initially 
through Zoom and later on through 
Cisco WebEx. These meetings 
provided a platform where the 
teacher could personally interact 
with the students. Though nothing 
can be compared to the face to face 



Indian Journal of Educational Technology
Volume 2 No. 2, July 2020

162

interaction but it was still worth the 
effort. These meetings helped the 
students to clear doubts and also to 
have interaction and collaboration 
with their peers. On the other hand, 
it was also noted that it was difficult 
for the teachers to manage students 
who were disinterested. Moreover, 
it provided less opportunity to those 
set of students who were reticent 
and chose to remain silent.

4. Google apps- All Google apps such 
as Google docs, Google slides, 
Google Forms came in handy along 
with the Google Classroom. All 
these applications are beautifully 
integrated with the Google 
Classroom. There are certain 
limitations, wherein there are a 
number of services that can be 
used as add-ons which have to be 
installed. Gaining expertise in using 
these add-ons is another daunty 
task for a new user of technology

5. Padlet- Padlet provides a unique 
platform to the students to express 
their views and share opinions with 
not only the teacher but also their 
fellow classmates. It is in the form 
of a common whiteboard where 
each child has the liberty to express 
his/her thoughts. The students 
found padlet a creative resource 
in the classroom where they could 
collaborate with each other but 
there were many instances, wherein 
students had to be discouraged to 
use language that was incorrect and 
inappropriate. 

6. Socrative- As a formative assessment 
tool Socrative proved its worth in the 
class. The best part is that Socrative 

can be accessed on any kind of 
device and gives the teacher the 
ability to give immediate feedback 
to the students. It is interactive and 
engaging and provides a number of 
question types which can be used 
for the purpose of assessment. The 
only lacuna is that it becomes very 
difficult for the teacher to analyse 
student data on an individual basis, 
since it requires lot of time and 
effort on the part of the teacher.

7. Pixton- Making comic strips with the 
Pixton app is a fun task. Students 
love to read educational content in 
the form of comic strips and the end 
results are very effective. It helps in 
enhancing the process of learning. 
Teachers can also encourage 
students to hone their creative 
skills and come up with comic 
strips of their own. The characters 
and background scenes are too 
limited in the free version and for 
every other thing it asks the user to 
upgrade. 

Every aspect has its pros and cons. On 
the one hand, technology has proven 
to be a blessing for the fraternity of 
teachers in this state of flux and crisis. 
It has not only showed the path to 
many teachers but has also fostered 
the feelings of oneness and standing in 
unison in these times. On the other hand, 
if we see, there are certain limitations to 
it too. Internet services are still in the 
preliminary stages in the Indian context 
and it becomes difficult to reach out to 
students located in remote areas where 
these facilities are meagre. Moreover, 
there is a certain group which still has 
to acquire pace and learn the use of 
technology. Though the challenges are 



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Volume 2 No. 2, July 2020

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many, but these challenges should not 
undermine the spirit of a passionate 
and innovative teacher.