**1. Introduction**

The year 2020 was an year when teachers were forced to make use of handheld devices to reach to their young and adult learners. Though, the accessibility and availability of technology was ensured in many countries, how these could be used in teaching and learning were left to the resourcefulness of teachers and learners alike. After three months of close downs and lock downs it almost was realized by both the teachers and learners that the academic year was not going to be delayed or lagged and that they had to complete the prescribed syllabus. Many teachers admitted that they were caught unawares in their handling of techno pedagogies. It was alright to teach about and lecture about pedagogical applications of technology but it was a different issue when it comes to implement these in the actual classroom situations. Most teachers did not know about learning management systems and many institutions did not have the support of learning management systems like Moodle. The most handy

techno pedagogical support that they had was zoom and to some extent Google classroom. The earlier classes were plain video lectures and students were given assignments and activities to be completed on the day the topic was learnt. Many teachers had reported that, the fact that, they could not see their students made their teaching very mechanical and lecture oriented. As it is often remarked by teachers, that a nodding head in front of them is a stimulus to teachers to proceed, pause or rewind their presentations. It was lamented by teachers that the devoid of the actual participants before them had made teaching very unidirectional and very monotonous.

The best practices with regard to traditional face to face and remote teaching is the level of engagement of the learner. Research studies have revealed that students realize learning outcomes when the class has involved multidisciplinary and multisensory teaching. This helps to make use of all senses to reinforce the learning and concepts are associated with the different aspects of a concept. All this makes the concepts steadfast and solid foundation to the concepts.

In a traditional classroom, student engagement is ensured by an interesting introduction. Many teachers resort to anecdotes, stories and historical facts related to the topic under discussion to stimulate interest and sustain the attention of students. While learning is remote, the task of the teacher becomes quite difficult if the teacher is not competent in use of digital resources and pedagogical tools.

## **2. Student engagement through Techno pedagogical applications**

The attributes of effective learning are retention of concepts and capability to apply the concept learnt in new and contrived situations. Effective learning can be contributed by enhancing the level of student engagement in the classroom. Student Engagement has been reported to be associated with behaviors, cognition and emotion [1].

**Engagement** can be assessed by level of paying attention, focus on the class activity which can be monitored by, ability to respond, participation in discussion, answers to questions, solving problems. In the traditional classroom physical proximity between the teacher and students enable recognizing facial expressions, expressions of acknowledgment, understanding, appreciating and nonverbal cues like nodding, shaking head, frowning, expression of anxiety, doubt, lack of comprehension, excitement, happiness, boredom, disgust, disengagement, engagement, level of involvement and level of participation [2].

Active student engagement is a critical factor that significantly influences students' learning and deepening understanding during online education. Many learning frameworks have been developed and experimented upon on levels of Student engagement [3–5].

#### **2.1 Digital tools for introduction**

Introductions play a significant role in the online classroom, just as in the traditional classrooms. Introducing concepts in new topics need to be made interesting to sustain student attention and ensure students are focused in the topic under discussion. Introductions need to be interesting and capture the attention of the student. Topics can be made interesting by the following mechanisms:

1.Making the subject relevant by highlighting the various applications of the concepts in the real world

*Techno Pedagogical Applications in the Context of Remote Learning - Case Studies and Best… DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.102032*


In an online classroom teachers can use a host of web based resources to sustain the interest in the topic. In one of the case studies, the instructor used short videos to introduce the subject and there were question and answer sessions based on what was observed and seen in the video. This ensured responsible and attentive viewing of videos by the students. Digital story telling enables stimulating interest in the topics being handled. Interesting techniques to introduce the sessions depends on the resourcefulness of the instructors.

Teachers need to share their screen for teacher inputs, writings, power points and points for discussion. This will enable toning down on the monotony of one way lecture by the teacher. This give avenues for interaction from students and opportunities to clarify doubts and get further explanations.

Various web conferencing tools provides teachers the opportunity to diversify modes of information delivery through video lectures, video recordings of lecture, screen share, power point slides. These provisions are available in all learning management systems viz., Moodle which enables laying down the course plan, course materials and students can also upload and download their submissions for assessment. The video platforms like Zoom, Google classroom and Microsoft teams serves as video/audio platforms enable two way verbal and nonverbal communication of ideas and information.

#### **2.2 Digital tools for discussion**

The online environment is also ideal for holding synchronous and asynchronous, discussion Forums provided teachers are familiar with the facility available in various learning management systems. After presentation and explanation of basic and higher level concepts, engaging students in discussions help to identify misconceptions and highlight the significance of the concepts in real world contexts. A topic related to real world problems when given to discuss by students will invoke divergent ideas and help to stimulate innovative thinking, instilling creativity and resourceful thinking. Discussion forums when held online encourage whole class participation provided the students have an average understanding of the topic under discussion and the topic is interesting and found relevant to current times.

Discussions and debates are useful learning activities that may be done in groups. The recordings may be viewed by the teacher, later for review and assessment Discussions may be held in the synchronous classroom or in the asynchronous mode. For effective discussions, it is imminent that the topic has been introduced and a reading activity has already been completed by the students. Only then the foundation becomes solid for raising arguments and providing insights. It is also necessary that effective discussions requires participation of all and requires an equal playing field. If the discussions are led by only one or two, it becomes a one way interaction [2].

Zoom breakout rooms have become a major feature of any remote teaching. Combined with other interactive tools or shared documents, they allow students to discuss and explore ideas with friends and classmates.

Whether online learning is synchronous or asynchronous, students not only enjoy the chance to work together on tasks and projects but also benefit immensely from the interactions that discussion provides.

If they record their video interactions, they can engage in more discussion without worrying about noting down all of the details as they will have a resource for revision at a later date [3, 4].

Best practices in online discussion forums which enhances student engagement prescribe and let students be aware of the objectives of the discussion forums.


#### **2.3 Online collaboration**

Technology offers plenty of opportunities for collaboration with members of the academic community, researchers, experts, practitioners and workplace professionals. These collaborations and network contribute to enhancement and enrich the scope and prospects of the students, especially in higher education. The future workplace is one of collaboration and requires one to be a team player rather than a lone path maker. There are many collaborative tools which encourage to team with and invite peers or members of the community for sharing information, review of literature, discussion and inputs of comments, opinion, structuring and developing models in unison. These enable to work synchronously and ensures active participation with the focus on doing rather than mere talking. It facilitates results and reinforce learning in a short span of time.

Online collaborative tools are web-based tools that enable teachers and students to perform a wide range of tasks, such as interactive discussions, online collaboration activities, sharing and accessing electronic learning resources, and many more others (**Figure 1**) [4, 5].

GitHub is where over 73 million developers shape the future of software, together. Contribute to the open source community, manage their Git repositories, review code like a pro, track bugs and features, power their CI/CD and DevOps workflows, and secure code before they commit it [6].

Slack in Higher Education gives students what their prospective careers hope to work them on and make them career ready. Gives them insights to problems prospective employers are working on and interested in and also the solutions they are looking for. It also gives a peep to the prospective work environment Slack is where the future works [7].

*Techno Pedagogical Applications in the Context of Remote Learning - Case Studies and Best… DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.102032*

**Figure 1.**

*List of online collaborative tools that provide opportunities for students to engage in teamwork.*

## **3. Case studies**

These case studies emerge from feedback received from practioners comprising of teacher educators, pre service teachers and teachers of higher educational institutions based on their deployment of techno pedagogical practices in their classroom.

The chapter draws upon first hand experiences of teaching faculty of higher educational institutions and reveals the techno pedagogical case studies that have been deployed in the context of remote learning in the wake of the pandemic.

This research paper collects feedback from teaching faculty of teacher educational institutions. The sample also comprised of pre service teachers of select teacher

educational institutions the feedback was collected from teacher educators (N1 = 18) through handouts with regard to details of pedagogical practices deployed by them for teaching the topic entrusted to them. The handouts listed the details that were to be described viz., topic outline, phase of the instruction, instructor activities and student's activities, applications and online resources used, details of teaching/learning online platform. Data was collected from handouts administered to the participants comprising of teacher educators (N1 = 18) and pre service teachers (N2 = 67) in March 2021. Both the teacher educators and pre service teachers were associated with teacher educational institutions of a state in India.

A panel of experts comprising of senior teacher educators with more than 25 years of experience in teaching and administration participated as experts and rated the inputs of teacher educators and pre service teachers for identifying the best practice based on the following criteria:


i. Whole class participation ii. Level of interaction iii. Multimedia presentation iv. Multiple pedagogical applications v. Activity based instruction.
