Mangaluru: The Department of Secretarial Practice organised a two-day National Level online programmeentitiled ‘Virtual Training for Virtual Teaching Platforms’ on 5 & 6 June 2020. The main objective of the programme was to train the teachers along with their students as a team, to conduct online classes with the help of three major Google Applications provided in the G Suite.

The resource persons were 1. Mr. Vishnu Poojari, Assistant Professor, Department of Commerce, Acharya Institute of Graduate Studies, Bangalore, who trained the participants on Google Classroom, 2. Ms. Jonita Rasquinha, Department of Computer Applications, St. Agnes College, on Google Forms and 3. Mrs. Shanthi Nazareth, Dean of Arts and Head of the Department of Secretarial Practice, St Agnes College, on Google Meet.

The programme on Day 1 was begun with an inaugural at 9.45 a.m. Prayer was lead by Ms. Freeda Almeda and Ms. Florida Almeda, participants and former students of St. Agnes College. Sr. Dr. Venissa A.C., Principal, St Agnes College, gave her message on the occasion and offered her best wishes. Mrs. Shanthi Nazareth, the Convener of the programme provided an overview of the programme. This was followed by the two sessions on Google Classroom and Google Meet.

Day 2 was started with a prayer lead by Mrs. Shallet D’Silva, a participant from Saudhi Arabia who was a former staff in the Mathematics department of St. Agnes College. Mrs. Shanthi Nazareth, the Convener, rendered the Vote of thanks at the end of the two-day programme. Dr. Nancy Vaz, organizing Secretary, moderated the sessions on both the days.

The participants were trained to create and manage the Google Classroom, to conduct meetings as well as classes through Google Meet and to provide the necessary support to classroom activities through the Google forms. All the sessions were interactive. The participants were given assignments on the topics whose output was required to be submitted to receive the certificate of participation.

The maximum intake was 250, which was fully taken up by participants across the country and two from abroad. However, on an average around 200 participants took part in the training programme. The programme was well appreciated by the participants.