Amidst concerns regarding the COVID-19 outbreak, Taylor’s University and College has announced that it will be conducting classes online from 23 March until 19 April 2020. There have been no reports of coronavirus cases within the campus, but the institution are prioritising the health and safety of both staff and students regardless.
In order to continuously provide classes remotely, Taylor’s will implement Virtual Learning Environment (VLE) courses to students. The platform consists of the institution’s own ReWIND system, live streamed lectures via Youtube Live, and Lightboard Video Technology.
ReWIND is a Lecture Capture System with over 5000 recorded lectures which enables students to learn in a self-directed and personalised manner at anytime. Live lecture sessions via Youtube is pretty much self-explanatory but offers an engaging and flexible learning environment. Whereas Lightboard complements these virtual lectures by providing an interactive clear whiteboard that captures written text, diagrams, etc in real-time.
Each course in Taylor’s University and College has its own virtual course site with features for e-assessment, e-tutoring, e-submission and e-forums. “Students’ progress is tracked by using a progress bar, and digital badges are awarded when students complete all the required activities online,” explained deputy vice-chancellor & chief academic officer Professor Dr. Pradeep Nair.
Other institutions also implementing this virtual learning approach in response to the COVID-19 concerns include University Malaya (UM), Universiti Tun Hussein Onn Malaysia (UTHM), Universiti Putra Malaysia (UPM) and MMU, according to several sources. It’s very likely that other universities and colleges will follow suit in light of this.
(Source: Astro Arwani / NST / MMU | Images: Taylor’s University & College)
