“Every interaction is an opportunity to learn”~unknown, although virtual classrooms are an effective tool for modern learning but achieving the level of student engagement offered in traditional classrooms still remains a challenge. Online chat, collaborative editors and audio video interaction are some of the features that enables the learner engagement during a virtual session.
Congrea being a redefined virtual classroom has added Ask Question as a new feature in its suite to cater the engagement requirement. The feature provides a space where students and teachers can simultaneously add their questions (online and offline) related to the ongoing context which can be answered by anyone during and after the completion of a session. Inspired by online forums, the feature has been designed to motivate the learners to have discussion and exchange their ideas for enhanced learning experience. It also comes with functionalities of upvote and comment to encourage collaboration in the classroom.
The feature has been added to increase the overall interaction between the participants both during and after the session. Below is the list of functionalities and usefulness of ask question feature in a virtual classroom session.
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Enables seamless session and saves time
A teacher mostly preplan the flow of their session but several inevitable factors make it tough for a teacher to achieve the same. With the addition of ask question a teacher can save their session’s time which they had to dedicate for a separate doubts clearing session. Similarly the class can be delivered smoothly without the interruption of the queries of learners.
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Supports synchronous and asynchronous interaction
The participants are allowed to ask and answer questions anytime during and after the completion of a session (recording). This facilitates the learners to get their queries solved whenever they have it irrespective of whether they were present or not during the classroom session.
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Question and their context mapping
One of the most important functionality offered by this feature, all the questions gets mapped with the ongoing context of the classroom. For instance all the questions asked during the page one of the whiteboard will be mapped to the context and will be visible whenever this context comes up. This makes it easy for a participant to understand the connection of the question being asked.
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Student encouragement
Ask question comes with the functionality of upvote both on question as well as answer. The questions get rearranged on the basis of the number of upvotes on them, most upvoted questions get on the top of the list. Also mark as answer functionality provides a flavor of gamification to the whole classroom as the teacher selects the best answer by marking it as final. It also supports comment on answers to promote discussion between the participants.
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Easy to view and access
A participant can use the view all question to quickly get through all the questions asked during a session. This functionality will allow the teacher to view all the questions at once and provide the feedback. In addition, the seekbar for the recording gets pinned with different colours to help the viewer navigate easily according to their preference.
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Learners involvement and analytics
In a broader aspect learners interaction in ask question will allow the teacher to judge involvement and participation of the students in the classroom. The feature can also aid in the further implementation of the analytics feature in Congrea.
Along with ask question, Congrea has also been updated with Notes and Bookmark features which enables the participants to add their personal notes and pin a particular context for their further reference. These features are again available both online and offline and stays private to the participant.
Along with time Congrea has been continuously evolving and with the addition of features like ask question, Notes and Bookmarks the software is moving even closer towards its goal of bridging the gap between an educator and learners in an online learning environment.