Covid-19, a life-threatening disease that originated in China's Wuhan province about six months ago, has put the entire world to a halt. From the economic front, we are witnessing the daily struggle of people for daily meals. There is no area of ​​left behind it, so how can education be an exception? But it is said that there is an opportunity in a crisis. So even in such a situation, some teachers are using technology to impart knowledge to their students through various remote mediums.  That is why the work of these teachers, who work with the feeling that we have to pay something to the society, is of special importance.

Pradip  Deore is one such active teacher working at ZP School Bokaddare in Nashik district, who is constantly busy trying to do something new.

When the whole world, including India, was locked down by the Covid -19 pandemic Pradip Deore continued to educate students using Microsoft's Skype in the Classroom tool. Using the same Skype in the Classroom, Pradip Deore flaunted "Incredible Maharashtra" to teachers and their students from various states of India as well as Russia, Belgorod, Hurghada Red Sea, Vietnam, Philippines, Malaysia, Thailand, Romania, Portugal etc. with information about culture, costumes , art, geographical diversities, historical places and tourist places in his native state Maharashtra. Teachers and students from abroad also joined the initiative through Skype from their homes.

       Not only did he stop by giving information about Maharashtra, but in the same session he was also taking tests and researching about Maharashtra with the help of a gamification app called 'Kahoot' to find out how much all the students understood about Maharashtra. The students solved this test with great joy. Till now, through this initiative, Mr. Deore has introduced the culture of Maharashtra to more than 200 foreign students and their teachers .

    Pradip Deore is a Certified Educator in the Microsoft Educator Community. He has also completed a number of Microsoft Digital Courses. He involved his students in various projects and initiatives globally. Ten students from his class interacted with students from Russia, Denmark and Poland during the lockdown with the help of a unique app called "Flipgrid" about the global environment. He also participated with his students in an international project of Korea da Silva's 'Plastic Clean Up Brigade' with the help of Skype. The students in his class have traveled virtually 560,000 miles and interacted with teachers and students from many countries.

     Deore is also a student voice ambassador for Microsoft's Flipgrid educational tool. Using Flipgrid, he provided a platform for his students to interact with students from different countries. Through this, he provided knowledge of global diversity to his students by exchanging various activities. His students have also done story readings in the 'Global Reading Project' through Flipgrid. He is an ambassador of Wakelet, a content creation platform, he curated information on various topics in the form of videos, pdfs, audios, and documents in Wakelet and makes it available to its students.

  He completed a three months National Geographic Certified Educator course by exploring "Reuse Plastic" and became a Certified educator of the NG educational community .

     Mr.  Deore  also took his school from the rural area, on the global platform. His ZP school Bokaddare is a member of the UNESCO School Club as well as Global School Program which is working for achieving UNO's Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) 2030. During the lockdown, he completed various courses at the British Council and at Cambridge University. Also, participated in global conferences on various topics. He is the co-ordinator in India for the Sweden-based NGO, Eco Training Center,  working on environmental education and international cooperation. A magazine published from  Romania has an article about his work in it.

    In this way,  he took advantage of this unprecedented time to transform into an opportunity. Using modern technology, Pradip Deore showed his students a new way of knowledge and introduced the culture of Maharashtra to the world. This is a commendable and inspiring thing. He gave us all a new ray of hope in this crisis.