Virtual Classroom: A Boon To Learners

Vol. 4 No. 3

Year:

2009

Issue: Dec-Feb

Title: Virtual Classroom: A Boon To Learners 

Author Name: R. Ananthasayanam, Thanga Rajathi Sethurajan, B. Tamilselvi 

Synopsis: 

Demands for a more personalized approach to education as well as flexibility have spurred learners to seek alternatives to the traditional approach.  As a result of technological advantages in society, the options for learning in and outside the classroom have broadened tremendously.  The great option is “Virtual classroom”.  A virtual classroom is a system that creates an environment designed to facilitate teachers in the management of educational courses for their students, especially a system using computer hardware and software, which involves distance learning. Education in the virtual classrooms has been described as being “just as vivid, meaningful and dynamic as face-to-face interactions in a traditional classroom — or even more so”.  As the virtual classroom is one that aims to give the student an experience equal to or better than the sort they would find in a traditional classroom, there are obviously many advantages of the virtual classroom to the student, as well as the teacher and the associated educational institution. Virtual classrooms “foster the dimensions of interest, involvement, imagination, and interactivity”, which make the virtual classroom an “immersive environment in which to learn”, perhaps even more immersive than the traditional classroom because of what is offered by new technologies used in the virtual classroom. This paper discusses the virtual classroom as a new move in the non-formal distance education, which is an advanced technique of Education Technology.  The Collaborative and Independent virtual learning types form the key features for Communication, Assessment and Support.  Moreover, a comparison of this virtual classroom with the traditional classroom blooms out the merits of virtual classroom which is definitely “A Boon to the Learners”.