LOSING NO TIME

For board exams next year, CBSE schools begin online classes

Ragu.Raman@timesgroup.com

Chennai:16.04.2020

With schools remaining closed for nearly a month now due to Covid-19 crisis in the city, CBSE schools have begun online classes for students who are promoted to Class X and XII to compensate loss of working days. Some schools teaching through apps like zoom, teamlink and microsoft teams, other schools are using learning management systems to upload the lessons.

The new academic year supposed to start from April 1 and many schools had originally planned to take classes till third or fourth week of April. "There could be at least one or two months delay in reopening of schools due to Covid-19 crisis. We can make it up during pooja and Christmas holidays. We have started online classes to keep our students engaged," said P G Subramanian, principal of Bhavan's Rajaji Vidhyashram.

Sunitha Vipinchandran, principal of Asan Memorial Senior Secondary School said students in Classes X and XII are more responsive to online classes. "We are sending the materials, resources and assignments to parents and they are taking the initiative. The school is also sending the alerts for online classes," she said adding that online classes likely to be extended for other classes as well.

Bala Vidyamandir Senior Secondary School Principal R Srinivasa Raghavan said the school has taken the decision to introduce online classes in the previous year itself. "We have trained our teachers in taking online classes. They are uploading lectures using software. Students can view these lectures using their login ID," he said. Students can also rate the lectures. Meena Sriram, an English teacher from Bala Vidyamandir said the Covid-19 crisis has helped her school to make a seamless transition to online classes. "Students will not have brakes in academics especially in Classes X and XII. Though there is no interactive audience, it challenges teachers to make it interesting and informative so children be engaged and watch the video. The students also can play it any number of times," she said.

G Chitramala, a Hindi teacher from Modern Senior Secondary School said teachers are prescribing online resources through various apps including teamlink. "We prescribe class timings in advance to the students. Many students are actively participating in the online classes," she said.