Article Preview
TopIntroduction
The shift in education from conventional classroom learning to virtual learning is making more importance during COVID-19 pandemic. Virtual learning has gain popularity and become an important part of teaching and learning process (Pituch & Lee, 2006; Van & Schepers, 2008). Virtual learning creates an environment to connect learners and educators on a web-based platform (Witmer & Singer, 1998). In this online environment knowledge sharing is carried out without any physical appearance of student and a teacher. In the present time of COVID-19 pandemic, virtual learning is trending and has become an essential part of new normal. Due to the outburst of this pandemic, students are bound to remain at home and virtual education has become the medium of learning. Virtual learning has now broadened the scope and created the global reach for the stakeholders. Worldwide people are determined to come out from COVID-19 disturbance by changing the learning style and combining the experimental and experiential knowledge together (Marshall & Ward, 2020).
Due to the epidemic, educationalists are compelled to use digital platforms for content management, curriculum mapping, communication, and collaboration. There are so many apps like zoom, Microsoft teams, google meet etc. available for providing online learning through virtual classrooms in the form of live webinars and meetings. Although, schools and colleges have considered these educational apps as a helpful instrument to continue studies during this tough time but at the same time they are showing apprehension in mainstreaming them. In virtual learning context, another popular mean of learning is Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) where recorded lessons are available, which are opened out to the community or specific students through passwords (Dillenbourg et al., 2014; Wulf et al., 2014).
During this difficult time, these tools and apps have been used to create the digital classrooms to connect to the world. To reinforce the education system during the lockdown, online learning has lent a helping hand for building a bridge between students and teachers and one needs to appreciate that how laptops and Internet are renovating the techniques that learners acquire (Jena, 2020).
In virtual learning infrastructure, colleges need high-speed internet and teaching transfer apps, in addition to stable IT arrangements and teachers who are contented teaching virtually. Students are also requisite to have good internet connection to join these classes. Government has a very important role for resolving the contemporary disaster of COVID-19. The decision taken in the education sector by the government during the outbreak of COVID-19 is to ensure that students should carry on their studies without hiatus.