Page 34 - Banking Finance June 2020

ARTICLE

Google Meet is the recently rebranded version of Google's whether people are staying at home on a county-by-county
Hangouts Meet. Google also said that earlier this week, it level, while the third is focused on insights around Facebook
had surpassed a new milestone, with more than 2 million connections, such as Facebook Friends, across geographic
new users connecting on Google Meet every day who are lines.
spending over 2 billion minutes together.
Innovative platforms for uninterrupted
Video-conferencing apps are witnessing a steep massive
surge in usage overall as more people are mandated to stay education
at home to curb the spread of the corona virus pandemic. Education industry has also been affected adversely in the
For instance, it was found that video-conferencing platform current global scenario. But the sector has accepted the
Zoom in March had garnered over 200 million users, up from challenge, leveraging the fact of being in digital era. The
its 10 million users in last month of 2019.Microsoft's Teams, current situation has led to the closing down of schools,
Microsoft's video-conferencing tool saw a 1,000 per cent universities, institutions following the spread of the Covid-
increase in usage. It had also been found that a new record 19. This has further affected the students and aspirants
of 2.7 billion "meeting minutes" in a single day had been preparing for their future. But as the educationists' believe
reached on the platform. that learning should not stop, hence physical education has
moved to the virtual world. While most of the schools and
Moving ahead we can see use of technology by leading universities across India and globe are offering online classes,
platforms without which it is inevitable to imagine the on the other hand there are education-technology platforms
world, today. for offering uninterrupted online education.

Online education portals, virtual classrooms, e-learning
Initiatives by Tech Giants like Google and
applications had already became an inevitable part of
Facebook imparting education .Amidst this pandemic outbreak ,when
Google had released GPS mobility reports. Google also lockdown is prevailing across the nations, online education
released an open online resource that aggregates is making a way ahead removing all hindrances in learning.
anonymized location-tracking data from mobile devices to Approximately 66% adults, according to a Pearson's study
share large-scale mobility and behavior trends. The end are liking online education, as 91% of students are unable
results are downloadable Community Mobility Reports that to go to school across globe, importance of e-education has
highlight movement-trend differences at country, state, become inevitable.
county or regional levels. These generally reflect mobility
Some free government Portals for courses and E-Learning
data from two or three days prior, according to the
are -
company, and never display absolute visit numbers.
a) ELIS-Portal- This portal is available at "free.aicte-
india.org". AICTE has started this free portal. This is a
Instead, users are shown a percentage change in visit volume
for location types - for instance, a 56% decline in mobility sort of ELIS (Enhancement in Learning with
Improvement in skills) portal. This provides various free
trends for Massachusetts parks from the February 16
reporting baseline to the most recent data collection date courses like machine learning, Programming, Digital
of March 29. Marketing. AICTE has tied up with 18 online education
companies, which are providing around 26 courses.
Facebook has rolled out three maps through its Data for b) DIKSHA - This portal is for teachers and all school
Good program aimed at tracking the potential spread of students. It is available in form of app or at
COVID-19. The company will share the maps, which are "diksha.gov.in". This has learning material for students
based off aggregated Facebook data, with research and and teachers as well. A Collection of approximately
public health organizations. The first map is a co-location 80,000 e-books is made available for 12th class only,
maps , used to determine the probability that Facebook users which have been prepared by CBSE,NCERT,SEB's. Books
will come into contact with each other. The second shows are available in 7 languages (English, Hindi, Marathi,

34 | 2020 | JUNE | BANKING FINANCE