Bored with strenuous online classes? This could be a whole lot more fun. Pearl Academy gives you the option of attending a class conducted by a Hindi-speaking Steve Jobs or an Indianised Albert Einstein, Cleopatra dressed in a red salwar suit swooning to Bollywood songs or even Frida Kahlo to take you through your lessons on art, history, design, expression and more — all on a medium that this generation pretty much lives on, Instagram.
With the institute's brand new Whose class is it now? Pre-semester online learning module amid the COVID-19 pandemic, students are being educated on Instagram, the hippest place to be right now for youngsters. Instead of your teacher, an avatar of eminent personalities will interact with the students on Instagram. The quirky videos not only aim to make it a refreshing experience but also has the rest of the curriculum connected to it. Even though it's Frida, Albert, Steve's faces on the videos, they are voiced by the faculty.
This online module consists of witty, engaging monologues narrated in contemporary conversational language by AR versions of Frida Kahlo, Cleopatra, Albert Einstein, Marilyn Monroe, Steve Jobs and the likes. "Students are sitting at home attending classes, they are anxious when they think about when the campuses will open and they can finally get back to attending classes. So, the aim of these modules using social media and new-age techniques was to make learning a lot more fun, bring in a bit of fiction too. The Instagram module is controlled by AR technology and we thought it would be quite interesting to introduce students to creative geniuses from different eras. The students get quite bored trying to learn the history of design, art and more, so this is a contemporary way of enhancing their creativity and thinking. Students get to research about the personalities, read about them, get inspired from their work and come up with a new interpretation of how they would express themselves," says Abhijeet Rahut, Course Leader of School of Creative Practice, Pearl Academy, who also conducts these online learning modules.
The animated avatar uses AR app filters to make them look like the personalities, it comes on screen to talk about their life and achievements in an attempt to inspire the students. On July 6, the class was conducted by the iconic Frida Kahlo who needed AR app filters to make her look real. Students were taught how to create AR filters and were asked to recreate her look to post on Instagram as their assignment.
Speaking about how the faculty is coping with the new online modules, Abhijit adds, "We had modules which were running online in the past few years partially. Since March we migrated completely to the online learning programmes due to the pandemic and it's been an immediate connect to the younger generation. The students are quite abreast with technology and we got new things to learn so it has been quite interesting. The faculty is learning on the go and that's the new normal for us."
Pearl Academy conducts all of these modules through Blackboard, the online learning platform, which is used to provide increased availability, quick feedback, and improved communication. Students can access Blackboard using the Internet anytime and anywhere. It also provides several tools, such as announcements, discussions and blogs that improve the communication between faculty and students and among students themselves, especially during these times of crisis when physical interaction is being avoided.