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Illustration by Derek Monteiro
[/vc_column_text][vc_column_text]It will now be almost one academic year since the pandemic situation forced universities worldwide to move towards online teaching-learning. IIT Bombay started its online classes in the last week of March 2020. The initial encounter with online instruction at the Institute now has moved beyond the anxiety of using ‘tech for teaching’. The Institute faculty are no more anxious about the ‘presence of the tech‘ in teaching, but their main concern is how to compensate for the ‘absence of the human touch‘ in this new instruction medium. The biggest challenge that emerged from the panel discussion on ‘Digital Learning: Bridging the Divide’ by IIT faculty was ‘How to humanize online learning experience and how to get the warmth of a physical classroom in online classes without compromising the sanctity of the system?’