4. E-Learning: Virtual Classroom --- by Revathi Viswanathan & Rajagopalan
E-Learning: Virtual Classroom
Dr.S. Rajagopalan &
Dr.Revathi Viswanathan,
Professor of English,
B.S.Abdur Rahman University
Chennai-49
ABSTRACT
One of the problems faced by us is lack of time to do what all we want to do in our classes - for example, provide more learning materials, give adequate practice, have discussion, pay attention to the needs of slow learners-just to list a few. What are we to do? It is here the Web comes to our rescue. We may create a class blog and ask each student to create one for him also. But we cannot get everything done with the blog. We can only, as we have already seen in one of our earlier articles, provide additional learning materials, give schedule for assignments, and enable them to provide ’comments’ or ask questions. But we cannot create a course ware or conduct a live class in real time or conduct a test or seminar. All this is possible in what is known as ‘Virtual classroom’ also called ‘a Classroom without walls’ or ‘A Classroom in space’. It also enables our students to learn at their own time at home or anywhere else and also at their own pace.
A Virtual Classroom is “an online learning environment, also known as Virtual Learning Environment (VLE It can be web-based and accessed through a portal or software-based’.. The class is conducted online, thus necessitating teachers to share their ideas and input through an online platform.
As already pointed out, the need for creating a virtual learning environment arises when
1. We as educators are not able to cater to the needs of students with mixed abilities satisfactorily in the traditional classroom where we have a face-to-face meeting with them.
2. There is a need to provide an enhanced learning content t
3. The rigid time table we follow in a traditional classroom poses problems in promoting effective learning.
4. Students want to learn more beyond a prescribed syllabus.
5. Teachers feel the need to supplement their lessons in the traditional classroom with the provision of more learning content for their students.
There are three types of online environment offered by the Web.
The term is an acronym for Modular Object-oriented Dynamic Learning Environment. It is a free software e-learning platform, also known as a Learning Management System, or Virtual Learning Environment (VLE). It is open source software and it is available for free. It may be installed in the server for anyone to access.
According to Wikipedia, some typical features of Moodle
· Assignment submission
· Discussion forum
· Files download
· Grading
· Moodle instant messages
· Online calendar
· Online news and announcement (College and course level)
· Online quiz
· Wiki
It offers scope for teachers to enroll and register students for his virtual class. Students have to enter the portal have to log in with the password and username. Most often teachers, who play the role of administrators, maintain control over the entire portal by permitting students to upload their completed worksheets only. This restricts students from modifying the tasks or activities uploaded by the teacher. The home page is designed in such a way that teachers can simultaneously share resources as well as tasks. If teachers want their students to learn additional inputs, they can upload them as ‘files’. Teachers can prepare worksheets with tasks and share them for students to access and do them online. The portal gives the facility to assign tasks with the specified timeline, which encourages students to complete them within the stipulated time frame. Teachers can integrate the use of Blogs, Wiki in this platform and facilitate students’ use of these tools also.
In Distance Education programmes, the moodle is widely used for offering online courses. For example, NPTEL—National Programme of Technology Enhanced Learning-the initiative of the seven Indian Institutes of Technology and the Indian Institute of Science - provides E-learning through online courses—all free-in Engineering, Technology, Sciences and Humanities. http://nptel.iitm.ac.in
Also, a few Universities like Yale University in USA offer free online courses- what are called massive open online courses (MOOC) as part of their Distance Education programmes.
Portals providing Virtual classrooms
Instead of downloading and installing Moodle and then creating a virtual classroom yourself, you may straightaway make use of such a classroom readily available. A few of the portals which provide it for free are: Nicenet, WiziQ and Edu.20. All that you have to do is to register using your Username and Password and a Virtual Classroom is made available for you.
Nicenet (http://www.nicenet.org)
It is one of the earliest portals providing a Virtual Classroom for us to use and it is free. At this portal anyone can set up a class in minutes and allow others to join. Setting up a class on its Internet Classroom Assistant i.e., the Virtual Classroom, takes about 2 minutes Its main features are the following:
You can upload any content i.e., learning materials, announcements etc.
You may provide links to internet resources.
You can give class schedule, submission deadline for assignments etc.
Students may submit their assignments online.
You may conduct online seminars.
It provides for easy communication between the students and their teacher as well as among the student themselves.
Edu 2.00 <www.edu20.org>
This is another well-known portal providing a free Virtual Classroom-- simple, powerful e-learning platform—for schools and colleges only.It offers unlimited teacher accounts
And upto 2000 student accounts, The Teacher can upload documents easily, enroll and register students for the course, provide assignments and timeline them easily. The additional feature of this learning and teaching tool is that the Learning Management System is been hosted by Amazon cloud and so users need not download, install or maintain the management system. The free plan given for schools and universities helps accredited universities to access the Learning Management System for free to offer courses and award degrees up to 2000 students. Institutions can create their own curricula and run their courses. It offers scope for lesson authoring and navigation which helps in creating rich and engaging lessons without any technical knowledge using the content authoring tools.
Teachers can upload, embed any kind of media including audio, video, power points, .MS.Office documents and Google docs. Another additional feature is the support it gives for instructor-led, blended and self-paced classes.
WiiQ www.wiziq.com
You can create a virtual classroom after signing in in this portal. There are both free and premium versions. You can provide courseware, schedule, and assignments, conduct webinar and administer online tests.
From what we have discussed above, it is clear that the use of a Virtual classroom by us would greatly contribute to the enhancement of learning on the part of our pupils.