Srinagar: A two-day workshop on Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) started at the University of Kashmir on Thursday.
Vice-Chancellor Prof Nilofer Khan inaugurated the workshop, organised by Educational Multimedia Research Centre (EMRC) for teachers from varsity’s teaching departments and affiliated colleges.
In her presidential remarks, Prof Nilofer said the outbreak of Covid19 pandemic disrupted offline education drastically and underlined the need for online teaching to ensure that students don’t lag behind in academics.
She said the role of a teacher in a physical classroom cannot be underplayed or ignored but it is equally important to see how teachers prepare themselves for unforeseen disruptions to physical form of education, as was seen during Covid19.
“MOOCs are an important way of reaching out to the students in such situations. This is where technology should come handy for teachers and ease students,” she said, congratulating EMRC for developing MOOCs in diverse disciplines of study.
Saying that EMRC is a very important centre which has been doing exceptionally well, Prof Nilofer said MOOCs programmes must be widely publicised to reach a wider audience.
Dean Research Prof Irshad A Nawchoo, who was a guest of honour, said academics have to be very careful with the content they design and develop for MOOCs so that it is easily comprehensible for students. He appreciated the efforts put in by EMRC to develop e-content programmes and other online tutorials.
Registrar Dr Nisar A Mir, who was a special guest, said courses like MOOCs can lead to an increase in enrollment of students in educational institutions in the country, which has the second largest higher education network in the world. He said the EMRC has a larger role to play as NEP lays great emphasises on online education.
Director EMRC Dr Salima Jan welcomed the dignitaries and guests and also highlighted the achievements of EMRC, considered as one of the best EMRCs in the country.
Earlier, Mr Ajaz-ul-Haq, Producer EMRC, spelt out the importance of the two-day workshop titled ‘MOOCs and the Changing Paradigm of Education’.
“The role of a teacher may have changed, but not the teacher. Change is to be understood from the paradigm of continuity. We need to understand the change if we have to bring about a change,” he said.
Dr Tariq Abdullah, Producer EMRC, delivered the vote of thanks, and Faheem-ul-Islam, conducted proceedings of the inaugural session.