virtual classroom
Virtual worlds have begun, somehow, out of stereotypes to be platforms for meaning nerds and geeks hiding in the basement of their parents. Much of this material may be attributed to the approval of educational institutions operating in the likes of Second Life.
Education in Second Life is big business. UK’s Open University has a strong presence in Second Life, a chain of private islands and a series of lectures in the world for its distance learning course. But the plants, whose presence in the virtual world have received the most press in the world is the same in the United States. Harvard Law School, Stanford and Princeton are all inside the virtual reality of Second Life, and to offer experiences for their students, who will host virtual classrooms there.
But what are the pros and cons of learning in a virtual classroom? Well, students experience a challenging learning environment for the comfort of your home. For distance learning courses, this opens a whole new level of activity that could not previously been there. Few can say that the experience of sitting in a virtual classroom is more interesting than sitting at a desk with his head in a textbook, and no more e-mail to contact the tutor. It also allows people to communicate with peers around the world to learn something they can not be lucky enough to live, sitting in a real classroom in real life.
However, learning in a virtual classroom is certainly not problematic. If there is dependency, there is potential for something going wrong. Second Life, like many other virtual worlds is a constantly evolving platform. There are bugs and problems and sometimes cut with a conference on the failure of a server or something like that is frustrating, to say the least. There are also those who argue that students do not also focus a virtual classroom, due to the fact that they are also trying to manage the technology, access to the base and attracts distractions at home.
Over the years people have become more comfortable with the idea of linking virtual interactions replace the real world. Think of all the friends that you are on Twitter, Facebook or MySpace. How many of you have seen them in real life than the number of people who probably never met? If you have something different then we are more and more that the drop “never meet” column. So it should come as no surprise that schools are slowly working towards the class system on-line. Some parents do not like the idea of virtual schools, because I do not think that children receive the same level of socialization is a real school environment. Other parents feel the lack of socialization is a good thing, because the increase in violence and drugs, which are in the public school system. New Development in line of educational software, students can still get many benefits without the risk of socialization.
digital recorders are proving to be a valuable tool for the students today. Many of the students in their classes attitude digital recorders and recording sessions for later review. The advantage of these recorders is that you can download the recordings to the PC and go to all the wrong dose or a part of the lesson in class, etc.