Virtual Classrooms

Children Plan for Planet's Future
http://www.cnn.com/2007/TECH/11/29/justimagine.elluminate/

60 elementary school students from Canada and Burkina Faso all gathered in a virtual classroom. They were united by Elluminate, a web collaboration system and real-time virtual environment, which can be implemented stand-alone or you can add live discussion and interaction. In 2006, Elluminate launched “Fire and Ice,” a virtual classroom where students from diverse countries can discuss a problem that concerns all of them---global warming. Fire and Ice is a series of interactive, international dialogues between students in various countries around the world. The project objective is to translate dialogue into action by inspiring students to develop their own solutions for helping combat climate change in their local areas. This offers students a chance to not only talk about pollution, but gather online to exchange ideas about how they can change their communities. They are able to put their selves in someone else’s shoes and have the opportunity to do something about climate change even though they are thousands of miles apart.

In my opinion, a solution like Elluminate is helpful because with very little additional hardware (a webcam and/or microphone) students and teachers can participate in a variety of online field trips, meetings, and collaborative projects, whether it's in a computer lab, or at one workstation, with or without a webcam, with no additional software to purchase. Sessions can be recorded and replayed later for review, or for absent students. Virtual reality in education can also offer students the opportunity to experience different times and places that they could not have done before. It may also be self-paced also and offer independence.

In addition, I believe it improves access to advanced educational experiences by allowing students and instructors to participate in distant learning communities using personal computers at home or at work; and to improve the quality and effectiveness of education by using the computer to support a collaborative learning process. I believe collaborative learning processes that emphasize group or cooperative efforts among faculty and students, active participation and interaction on the part of both students and instructors, and new knowledge that emerges from an active dialog among those who are sharing ideas and information are important.

One of the downfalls, however, is that appropriate behavior in different settings can not be taught when you are using the computer and that virtual reality can never take the place of face to face classroom instruction.

For further research I would be interested in finding out what grade level a virtual classroom works the best with. I’d also like to know what type of virtual classroom there are for students with disabilities and how well it worked versus the traditional classroom.