Abstract:

Commonwealth of Learning, on 13 March 2020, stated that countries in world are closing down institutions of learning due to COVID-19 pandemic and it is important to ensure that learners' time is not lost and they continue to learn from a location of their choice. In India, Ministry of Human Resource Development and University Grant Commission have recommended that the students get academic support on-line and have shared several ICT initiatives in the form of digital platforms for teaching-learning. Indira Gandhi National Open University also decided to use such I.T. platforms. This study explores a. use of online learning platforms/tools for students enrolled in nursing programmes in the ODL programmes of Indira Gandhi National Open University; b. platforms/tools preferred and used by the students; c. Students’ responses and lessons learned by the teacher. In this study, exploratory study approach is used. The study highlighted that during lockdown period and while working from homes, the teacher learned and used the new technology to reach out to students all over India. One of the key challenge was to enrol students and to involve them in the online teaching-learning. Innovative ways to motivate the students to participate in learning were found; mentoring of students became a 24x7 activity as many of these nursing students were working with COVID 19 patient in hospitals as frontline workers. Students preferred to use facebook and WhatsApp platforms for sessions and were willing to participate in Google-Meet sessions as well but internet connectivity issues were the constraint and many students preferred facebook sessions. Reactions of students were positive after completing online theory sessions and participation in online practical sessions was also very good. During this initiative the teacher too learnt several lessons. In future, online teaching-learning offers huge potential for use in various health sciences programmes with some modification especially for practical activities and using a blended approach.

Keywords: