THE EFFICACY OF EDTECH TOOLS IN HIGHER EDUCATION ONLINE FOR THE PROVISION OF QUALITY EDUCATION IN INDIA DURING COVID-19 PANDEMIC

Abstract

With an uninvited and unexpected intrusion of COVID-19 into the world of education, online teaching and learning suddenly came as a massive shock for many teachers and learners and as a result quality education was at stake. This crisis-hit situation compelled educators to have thought of alternatives to the traditional classroom. Setting a hospitable classroom environment to keep learners engaged online became a herculean task for the teachers, after the pandemic had shut down educational institutions. At this juncture, the intervention of tools of Educational Technology indubitably complemented online teaching and learning and assured the learners of the quality education which many learners might have been afraid of losing. Though the realm of education has known the Edtech tools very well even earlier, this pandemic broadened access to the use of these Edtech tools in higher education in India and multiplied the opportunities to explore them big time. It cannot be hyperbole when we say that the reliability of edtech tools to ensure quality education in higher educational institutions just went uphill during this pandemic. Our Paper discusses how various Edtech tools such as Kahoot, Padlet, Edpuzzle and Flipgrid helped ensure quality education in higher education in India and how well these Edtech tools keep learners engaged in learning online during this COVID-19 pandemic.