WHICH VIRTUAL CLASSROOM?

theenglishteacher on August 1st, 2009

Virtual Classroom: A virtual classroom is a learning environment created in the virtual space. The objectives of a virtual classroom are to improve access to advanced educational experiences by allowing students and instructors to participate in remote learning communities using personal computers; and to improve the quality and effectiveness of education by using the computer to support a collaborative learning process. The explosion of the knowledge age has changed the context of what is learnt and how it is learnt – the concept of virtual classrooms is a manifestation of this knowledge revolution.

Following up from the recent very interesting first etcon=(E-Teachers Conference) the debating topic was on Virtual classrooms, do we really need them? Firstly and unfortunately the virtual classroom/meeting room that we were using for the debate, hosted by dimdim crashed. Needless to say after the introduction lead by Kirsten Winkler we had the first crash of the evening followed by others which lead the organizers to change platforms and use that of edufire. Unfortunate yes, but useful for the so called experts to get a taste of what we teachers experience frequently, that is unrealiable virtual classrooms to teach our students. Another of the questions debated and asked by Heike Philp was 10 reasons why Skype alone is not enough. I personally feel safer with the use of Skype it is much more reliable for audio, but of course it does not have a virtual classroom etc and tools. There is a really interesting post on the forum at Myngle (viewable only for teachers) started by Kirsten, who has added a poll Virtual Classrooms and Skype in Online Teaching. So my question is, which Virtual Classroom do you use and what are the pros and cons?

Source etcon kirsten Winkler dimdim edufire Myngle Wikipedia