WHICH VIRTUAL CLASSROOM?
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
Sounds like you had a hard time! I use Elluminate and love it! Very reliable, have had students participate successfully in very interactive sessions via dial up. Occasional issues are more to do with unreliable/slow internet connections of participants rather than Elluminate. You can also record sessions. However Elluminate is not free – you can have what they call a V-room free this allows three participants so is great for meetings and individual tutorials. For me Skype would be very much a poor alternative as in my experience you can do almost everything in Elluminate that you might do in a real classroom including groupwork and quizzes – and some of it rather better! eg brainstorming.
By the way Edublogs has a community partnership with Elluminate and has access to a room used for its free webinars. I usually facilitate either an unconference session or a specific topic session in the room on Fridays (West Aus time 09:00 – that’s GMT+8). So if you and any of your colleagues are interested in seeing how Elluminate works then come and join us – the sessions are freely available to all. Alternatively if several people are interested we can run a specific session to introduce the features of Elluminate either as one of our Friday sessions or at another time if our time is inconvenient for people as it probably would be from Rome!
Jo Hart (@JoHart on Twitter)
Hi Jo, thanks for your comment and thanks for sharing, I will definitely take a look at Elluminate. I had a peep at your blog, nice stuff, see you on Twitter
Hi, I’m an ESL teacher in Kazakhstan and looking to possibly boost my income teaching online. I noticed you use Myngle and I wondered if you would mind giving some advice about it. Is it easy to use? Do you get a lot of students? How are the students? Does it pay well? Are there any other similar companies out there? I appreciate your time. Just trying to decide whether to try Myngle or not.
Hi Walton, and thanks for dropping by
Regarding the online teaching, you set your own price regarding lessons/and or packages, is it easy to use? Well more or less depends how tech savvy you are, but once past the basic hurdles I would say quite straight forward. Do you get a lot of students, this also depends on how much you promote yourself, I always have students and sometimes on and off, but this is great for me as I teach offline too and have other projects running side by side. Try it out if you have some time, if you need any ulterior info please let me know, Aniya 
Mitica !
ciao,
Luca (BB)
I use Oneeko.com working freelance – interested in more “group class orientated ones”.
Best wishes,
Philip.
http://www.onlineenglishteacher.com