PUDUKKOTAI: Even before lockdown 3 was announced, some schools and colleges started online
classes. With the lockdown extended by two more weeks, Pudukkottai Government Medical College decided to conduct online classes for students, all of whom have gone home.
On Monday, the first online class was conducted for first-year MBBS students. Out of 150 first year students, 140 took part in the class held from 11 am to 12.30 pm.
“We do not want students to miss out on their classes due to the lockdown. As most of them are in different parts of Tamil Nadu, we do not know when they would be able to come back. Even if they return, we do not know if we would be able to gather 150 students in a room. So, we started online classes,”
said dean Dr AL Meenakshi Sundaram.
Plans for online classes started on April 24 with the college finally settling on TeamLink as the medium of choice as it consumes less data. When the class did begin and 140 students logged in at the same time, it was found service was slow. It was then decided to split the class into two batches with an equal
number of students each.
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Classes are streamed online to all students using two laptops. Faculty keep the audio and video on at the start of classes. Should students need any clarifications or have questions, they can switch on the audio and
video to be heard and seen.
Joel, a student from Ernakulam, said, “This is a great experience for us. After trial runs with different apps, we decided on TeamLink. It is accessible to all students, even those with weak internet connections. We optimise by keeping audio. video off and switch them on when we speak.”
The first class was on calcium metabolism by Dr Sujatha, vice-principal and professor of Physiology with assistant professors Dr Anbarasi, Sajunnisa and Venkatesh.
As it was a video class, The dean said, “Online classes would continue till regular classes commence.
Initially, we have decided to take three classes per day of 30 minutes’ duration each. This would continue in future.”