Vidya Iyengar By Express News Service BENGALURU : New approach to teaching It was a regular Monday for the 7,000 students of Seshadripuram Group of Institutions who attended their classes from 8 am, according to their usual time table – albeit online. With mounting syllabus and loss of several teaching hours, Wooday P Krishna, Honorary General Secretary, Seshadripuram Group of Institutions, felt this to be the need of the hour. Students have been given a password to login to the sessions, and automated attendance is taken. “This has been implemented across our nine colleges. We didn’t want students to sit idle. And considering we are in the IT capital, we felt we should make use of resources. While students are techsavvy, it may take time for the older generation of teachers,”he says. Tests, in multiple choice format, will also be conducted, the results of which will be automated. At a time when the global economy is going through turmoil, in another Zoom meeting, students of Millennium Mams’ (MM), a non-profit organisation that teaches investing lessons to women, held its first meeting of this year through Zoom. During the one-hour lesson by Bishnu Dhanuka, who leads MM, students from across analysed possible repercussions of the lockdown on the economy, the likely fiscal deficit and the sectors which could bounce back faster than others. Carnatic classical musician Keerthana Rao has been teaching music for over 10 years now through Skype. But recently, the interest has doubled, and Rao has also introduced classes over WhatsApp, a 15-day course where she teaches devotional songs. “The response has been great, especially now during quarantine. You can learn 15 simple songs in 15 days. I send students an audio clip of my voice and leave a gap after each line for them to repeat after me. At the end of the day, the students send an audio clip of them singing the song and I give them a feedback,” says Rao who has been getting several calls from across the globe for classes priced at `1,000. According to Anirudh Ravi, 27, guitarist for Cinema of Excess, his schedule involving online teaching has been packed recently. “During quarantine, the classes have been doing well. I do one-on-one lessons on WhatsApp video calls. If I have the same frequency of students even after the lockdown is over, I’d like to continue taking online classes,”he says To make this period exciting, dancer Lourd Vijay, who is offering both group and private lessons in jive, salsa and bachata online, is also organising ‘The Quarantined Competition’, between April 4 and 17, an online challenge which will include six competitions, prizes every two days and an overall champion. While he admits that there are some cues that need to be followed, which sometimes makes online classes challenging, he is working around them. “We hadn’t done this commercially until now, but going by the way it’s working out, we may think of making it a permanent feature,” says the seasoned dancer. (With inputs from Tanya Savkoor)

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