Workshop on blended learning platform at Nauni varsity

A two-day workshop on NARES-Blended Learning Platform (BLP) was organized at Dr. YS Parmar University of Horticulture and Forestry (UHF), Nauni on October 30-31. The workshop was attended by 60 scientists and 110 students from the College of Horticulture and Forestry from the main campus at Nauni and College of Horticulture and Forestry at Neri and Thunag.

Dr. Manish Sharma, Dean, College of Horticulture cum Nodal officer of the programme welcomed the Chief Guest Prof. PK Khosla, Chancellor of Shoolini University and Guest of Honour Prof. Rajeshwar Singh Chandel, UHF Vice-Chancellor.

In his opening remarks, Prof. Rajeshwar Singh Chandel emphasized the need for integration of IT tools in the education system to make it more efficient and student-centric. Dr. Sudeep, PI-NAHEP component  at ICAR-Indian Agricultural Statistics Research Institute (ICAR IASRI), joined the meeting online and gave a brief outlook of the system and IT tools that are being used to make the educational system easy and more user-friendly. Dr. RC Goyal, IT consultant of ICAR-IASRI also emphasized the need for blended learning programmes in the agricultural education system. Speaking on the occasion, Prof. PK Khosla talked about quality education and insisted on synchronization of syllabus with online tools. Dr KK Raina, Librarian cum PI-NAHEP IDP of the university also spoke on the occasion.

Technical session was taken up by master trainer Tarun Khurana who explained about the utilization of IT tools and smart devices and their use in agriculture systems. He gave an exhaustive demonstration of the BLP programme to the students and faculty including different aspects of the Academic Management system, creation and updation of courses, uploading of course contents, uploading study material, ppts, videos, etc. A thorough demonstration was given for online student evaluation.

On the second day, hands-on training sessions were held separately for faculty and students at the Computer and Instrumentation Centre of the University. In this session, individual scientists/ students were given training on PCs and laptops for using the blended learning platform. The teachers were exposed to the creation of courses, uploading of study material, creation of online classes, systematic appraisal practices, etc. Simultaneous sessions for students were held where they were given hands-on training to get notes and different contents provided by teachers, taking tests, quiz, etc. This session was taken up by Dr. Madhu and Vibhor Tyagi. Dr. Manish Sharma in his closing remarks thanked all the resource persons and team from IASRI, all the faculty and students for participating in the programme.