Covid19 sees Sona College of Technology and Sona School of Management accelerating education 4.0
Salem : Long before the Covid-19 lockdown began, the digitally savvy Sona College of Technology and Sona School of Management at Salem had with great forethought migrated its classes online. Not a single class was missed as faculty members without missing a beat began engaging with students on platforms like blackboard, lecture capture system, and Microsoft Teams instead of the physical classroom.
Schedules are posted on the college’s learning management software platform Blackboard and online learning facilitated through Moodle and lecture capturing systems. The Blackboard content is updated by the faculty periodically to ensure that the learning outcomes are met. Assignments, Mini Projects, Quizzes and online internal assessments are conducted at appropriate intervals with faculty intervention.
Of course, it can get depressing being cooped up at home for a long time. For students who feel stressed being indoors for prolonged periods, the college has arranged online counselling.
Well before the Corona Crisis, the Salem based institute had geared for Education 4.0 aligning itself to the needs of the fourth industrial revolution. Smart technology, artificial intelligence and robotics are the backbone of the fourth industrial revolution and forward-thinking educational institutes have been changing their learning delivery systems as well as curriculum to meet the needs of a constantly connected world.
Sona has the necessary platforms to conduct both summative and formative evaluation in online mode. Sona also uses HireMee platform to conduct proctored exams which has AI based proctoring to identify if a student copies from books. HireMee coding tools are used for testing the programming skills.
Meanwhile at the Sona School of Management, the second year MBA students are currently on capstone (project work) and are doing this using the platforms like Google forms and Survey Monkey to collect data. The students are provided with the facility to access proprietary databases like EBSCO, ProQuest, Prowess etc from their home to facilitate their research work. Due to the lockdown the students have been permitted to do desk research. The students are monitored through emails, WhatsApp and phone calls.
Native Japanese language trainers are conducting Japanese classes through Zoom meeting tool. Also, all the students who already got offer letters from Japan based companies are being prepared for their work life in Japan by the teachers.
Digital Placements
Given the unprecedented situation, the two colleges have moved not just academics but its placement related training and testing to online platforms as well.
Resumes of small number of unplaced students already with prospective employers, and moving to the next stages. Online tests are conducted by companies which students can write with a webcam facility and net connection. Personal Interviews are conducted by companies through Zoom or Skype.