Workshop on OER, Techno-pedagogy and Online Assessment for Teacher Educators of Odisha

Within the mandate of National Education Policy (NEP) 2020, University Grants Commission (UGC) India has developed blended learning guideline for higher education. Guidelines will provide better learning opportunities to the learners. For better implementation of blended learning in higher education institutions, Commonwealth Educational Media Centre for Asia, New Delhi in collaboration with Ravenshaw University, Odisha conducted capacity building programme for teacher educators of Odisha in implementation of blended learning in a project mode.

In this regard, CEMCA organised 2nd Capacity Building Programme of the project using blended learning pedagogy for the Teacher Educators of Odisha on Open Educational Resources, Online Assessments and creating project proposals from 5-9 October 2021.

Dr Barnali Roy Chaudhury, Assistant Professor, Netaji Subhas Open University, Kolkata facilitated the session on what are open educational resources, how as teachers we often mistake free for open educational resources, how does an open educational resource look like, what intellectual protection rights are available for releasing work under the Creative Commons License, why is it important for teacher educators to know and understand the various Creative Commons Licenses and what licenses should teacher educators use to release their own work under the creative commons license.

In the session on Online Assessments Dr Pranita Gopal, Visiting Faculty, Ravenshaw University, discussed about the various online assessment options available for teachers and classroom facilitators using blended learning model. A detailed discussion was also held using the COL resource on Assessment Strategies for Online Learning where the big question of ‘What does enhancement of learning by technology offer assessment practices’ was dealt in detail. The session also covered ideas to use differentiated instruction in summative / formative assessment in blended learning, creating authentic assessments. The teacher educators were also exposed to a Flipped Learning Class on Hot Potatoes TM and its use in blended learning environments for practice etc. Teacher Educators were also encouraged to link their screencast -o-matic videos into EdPuzzle to create tailor made e-assessments.

Prof Manoj Saxena, Professor, School of Education, Central University of Himachal Pradesh, Dharamshala conducted the workshop session on planning and drafting project proposals with emphasis on planning projects that are in sync with the needs of the educational system today and the expectations from researchers.

The workshop was attended with enthusiasm and participation of 100 teacher educators was noteworthy. The teacher educators interacted with all three resource persons and had hand-on practice through synchronous and asynchronous using LMS.