Due to the Covid-19 pandemic, most of the institutions are closed worldwide. Even the institutes that had started to offer physical classes have mostly forced to shut down their campus due to reporting of Covid cases among the student/teacher/staff. In this situation, online classes or virtual classes are the only options. When lockdown was imposed in India on March last 22nd in 2000, I did not anticipate that it would last for so long. So, when our college asked to take some classes online, I avoided the classes through Zoom/Google Meet or such platform due to unfamiliarity with these applications. Poor Internet connectivity was also another issue. So, I mostly prepared study materials in similar to book chapters and provided these for uploading in college website for the students. Later on, I became conversant with Google Meet or such platforms.
However, when taking some laboratory sessions like MATLAB, Operating System Lab, C++ Lab, many students were not able to connect with the class sessions as they do not have PC/Laptop with them. A smartphone is all they have. So after sometime, found some websites, where students can execute their programs online. For example, https://www.onlinegdb.com/ is a very nice website where one can type and execute C, C++, Java, Python, R, Prolog programs. Even, one can do C programming with files in this onlinegdb.com website. Following is one snapshot for C programming online:
For doing R programming, I found https://www.mycompiler.io/ very helpful. This website also offers compilation facility for Java, Python, PHP, Bash, Perl, x64 Assembly language programming etc. For doing Matlab program, one can use the free and opensource equivalent up to many extent the Octave, and https://octave-online.net/ can be used for running Octave commands.
Similarly, many Institutes have developed virtual labs for many different subjects. One can explore https://www.vlab.co.in/ and https://vlab.amrita.edu/ for many labs in wide disciplines like Computer Science, Electronics, Electrical, Mechanical, Civil, Chemical, Biotechnology, Physical Science, Chemical Science.
School students can explore http://www.olabs.edu.in/ for some virtual experiments in Chemistry, Biology, Physics.
Given the present scenario, where many countries are facing second wave or third wave of Covid-19 infections, these kinds of website really help students a lot. The digital revolution and use of ICT has enabled the learning in this critical time possible through online classes and online laboratory sessions.
