During the most challenging times of covid-19, education was the topmost priority of each government. They did not sit back but immediately took the action of using online platforms for the smooth and continuous flow of education. It was about the future of students and giving the teachers a right platform to enhance their teaching process. None of us had ever imagined of such a situation, but we all came through it and made it a success. The authorities simultaneously made sure that the portals were user friendly and followed cybersecurity norms. This gave way to an E- learning system wherein the whole community was on their laptops and mobiles. During this time some of the online platforms were most frequently used. Let’s talk about such portals.
1. Unacademy-
It has the most experienced educators, including the first woman IPS officer of India, Kiran Bedi. The app provides more than 2400 videos and specialised courses and has benefited around 3,00,000 students. It has recently been used by a number of students to prepare for competitive exams and has enabled them to enhance their knowledge and skills.
2. Zoom-
Zoom is another online video calling platform that has been the talk of town recently. Its usage has been at its peak during the coronavirus pandemic. According to its founder, zoom was seeing around 200 million daily meeting participants in 2020, and this figure increased every month. Zoom allows to host a meeting of around 100 students at a time. Along with this, it allows the educators to make use of file sharing options, text messages and voice calls.
3. BYJU’s-
BYJU’s is another learning app that offers learning programs for students between classes 1-12. It also provides courses for competitive exams like NEET, JEE etc. In order to use it, students need to have a subscription, although first fifteen days are free. Among several online platforms, BYJU’s is the most used e-learning platform during lockdown with around 65% of the parents confirming it’s use for their students.
4. Google Meet-
Google meet has seen a 30 fold rise in its usage from January,2021. It hosts around 3 billion minutes of meeting and adds around 3 million new users everyday since the start of the pandemic. It was originally a tool used for businesses, but because of zoom taking off during lockdown period, google announced free usage of meet app for everyone with an account in April 2020. It allows around 100 participants in a meeting, making it the most suitable platform for online lectures.
5. Vedantu-
Vedantu is another platform that was started in 2014, and was the first company to start with live online teaching in the country. Today, it is a market leader in providing live classes for students between 1-12 and for competitive exams like NEET AND JEE. Vedantu too has seen a tremendous rise in its use with around 2 million students attending live classes with overall 220% growth during lockdown.
Due to drastic conditions created by coronavirus pandemic, several online platforms including Vedantu and BYJU’S are providing free classes to the students, resulting in 200% increase in the number of new users. Although, there has been a huge increase in the use of such platforms, we too are not sure about its effect on the society i.e. whether it will lead to poor user experience or cause benefits to the society.