Online classes via WhatsApp are inconvenient as there are a lot of students messaging altogether: Gatiq, DGI

These are first-hand student accounts on how our young population is managing to keep their exam prep or college course work going from the confines of their homes. In case you want to share your lockdown study experience, write to us at publish@shiksha.com.

I am currently pursuing B.Tech in Computer Science from Dronacharya College of Engineering, Greater Noida. This is the very first time I, as a student, as well as a citizen, am facing such a problem of lockdown. Before the lockdown was announced we were given an 8-day leave on account of Holi, that is, from 4th to 11th March.

Then on the 10th, we were told that all schools and colleges are closed till 30th March. As per the college calendar, we were having our 2nd sessional exams from 28th March but due to this, the teachers provided us with some assignments that we had to complete and mail them as per the given dates of submission. Each assignment comprises of 25 questions and there are 2 assignments given in each subject and we were told that we would be marked based on the assignments submitted, till then there were no online classes.

When on 22nd it was announced a 21-day lockdown, it was then when we were told about the online classes that will be held via WhatsApp and a timetable was also provided for the classes. Since then, regular classes are going on except for the weekends. There are no practical demonstrations shown to us, we are provided with the video lectures of all the subjects which are helpful as we are having technical subjects which can not be prepared via notes only. The teachers are really helpful and cooperative, they clear every doubt that the students ask.

We are provided with 2 questions after every lecture that we have to mail the respective teachers and based on which we are marked present or absent.

The online classes are conducted regularly as per the given timetable. Despite all this, the online classes via WhatsApp are inconvenient as there are a lot of students messaging altogether and because of that sometimes the teachers get puzzled. Also, there are some students constantly messaging irrelevant things and making fun of others. Even after constantly requesting them not to post such things they keep doing so.

During the classes, half of the time gets wasted resolving fights and answering irrelevant questions. When the teacher comes and greets the students there are around 100 students greeting the teacher back and sometimes while greeting the teachers they don't even let the teacher speak or sometimes the teacher's message is left unseen and the teacher then gets irritated. Since there are a lot of students asking doubts so it takes time to answer all of them, so we get late replies, but that is neither the teacher nor the college's fault.

There is one more problem I'm facing, we are provided with our professional e-mail addresses which work on One-on-one mail only and even after sending the mails on time our teachers sometimes don't receive our assignments. One more thing I would like to mention is, a few days back I told my HoD what all problems I was facing and told him that classes via WhatsApp do not seem professional at all. I also suggested that we could use Microsoft teams or Zoom cloud.   

About the Author:

Gatiq Doultani is a student at Dronacharya Group of Institution pursuing Bachelor of Technology. He loves to be around computers and to code.