Since man developed communication, visionaries have passed down their dreams and ideas from generation to generation. The dreams and ideas of Jules Verne, Edgar Rice Burroughs, and Gene Rodenberry were laughed at by many, however, those ideas and dreams have become reality.
The virtual classroom began with continuing education classes of the sixties called the "sunrise semesters". Here, folks tuned into their local public television station and watched as an instructor guided them through art, mathematics, and cooking classes. It was a good idea; but way ahead of its time. The technology was not there to really support the idea and allow it to blossom.
The virtual classroom has taken on three different forms: 1) teleconferencing; 2) completed via the world wide web; and 3) a combination of these two mediums.
Teleconferencing is a technological breakthrough using television monitors to transmit pictures over the telephone lines. Fiber optics has made this possible. Students can interact with the instructor via speaker phones at a remote location. Distance knows no bounds with this technology. You can sit in a classroom in California and see and converse with your instructor in New York. The advantage to this type of virtual classroom is that you can enroll in a class anywhere that has the capability. The disadvantage to this is that you must travel to a location that has all the equipment to make it possible.
Parkland College, Champaign, Illinois has a distance learning program. In this program an instructor at Parkland addresses divergent groups of students in several smaller towns in the College's district. During the course of the semester, the instructor travels to the various "nodes" conducting classes, this allows the instructor to physically meet with all the students, adding the personal interaction to a distributed learning environment. This mixture of methods is needed during the transition period between the traditional classroom and the virtual classroom.
This media allows you to connect to a server via a modem from home. You will find your assignments, class objectives, syllabus, etc. posted electronically. Once you have read the assigned materials and completed your assignment, you send the send the assignment to the instructor electronically. But, you do it at home; at 3 a.m., if you wish. The disadvantage is the fact that you can not progressively interact with the instructor or other students.
Some prefer using both teleconferencing along with the world wide web. You probably get the best from both worlds. Hopefully, traveling to the remote site for the teleconferencing will be minimal; but you do get a chance to interact with the instructor and other students in real-time.
There are several more advantages of using the virtual classroom, but here
are just a few:
The main disadvantages are:
The virtual classroom will change the learning process and that will initially be disruptive to the learning process. Teachers and students are rather set in their ways in their presentation and participation styles. The virtual classroom will change the nature of the interaction or the process of learning. (A case where the hardware technology is ahead of the process technology.)
The virtual classroom will ultimately enhance the learning experience of millions of people. Knowledge, skills, and attitudes will be developed through the use of computer and telecommunication technology. It will be disruptive at first as we - teachers, trainers, students, and learners - learn to develop the instructional and learning processes necessary to maximize the potential of the virtual classroom.