Virtual classroom- A platform for learner-centric educational practice

Know how virtual classroom can catapult your education after Covid 

With the outbreak of COVID-19, lockdown and social distancing measures have led to closures of schools, training institutions and higher education facilities worldwide. There is a paradigm shift in the way educators deliver quality education—through various online platforms and virtual learning environment. Online learning, continuing education have become a panacea for this unprecedented global pandemic. Transitioning from traditional face-to-face learning to online learning can be an entirely different experience for the learners and the educators, which they must adapt with little or no other alternatives available.  

The use of online platforms through virtual learning environment are explored and tried for teaching and learning for the students and corporate employees. Online learning in the form of virtual classroom will be effective if it is implemented in an integrated manner that incorporates the following six critical principles, so that it empowers the students’ learning:  

1. Virtual classroom has to take pedagogical and technical aspects into account. 
2. It has to be learner-centered, whereby learners become the primary focus of attention, as opposed to the traditional emphasis upon the instructors. 
3. The best approach to teaching and learning is the bi-instructional method where e-learning is utilized for independent study to support self-managed learning and indirect instruction to support peer collaboration, interaction and eliminate isolation. 
4. Assessment must become an integral part of the virtual classroom setup so that the learners would be able to self-assess themselves and think of ways to improve their assessment.  
5. A virtual classroom software must come with webcam support as more than 80% of virtual classroom facilitators say they use webcams during virtual classes.  
6. Virtual classroom platform must support learner-learner, learner-instructor and learner-content interactions.  

How do you explain your virtual classroom? 

Students can not only learn virtually from anywhere, but they may also imitate genuine classroom events in an online teaching and learning environment: 

Educators can: 

1. Explain the courses in real-time 
2. Illustrate concepts on whiteboard 
3. Assign assignments, explaining the formulas 
4. Assign tests, and  
5. Prepare assessment reports, etc.  

Learners can: 

1. Raise their hands to ask questions in mid of the virtual session 
2. Submit doubts in real-time and engaging in solutions 
3. Reach out to educators’ post-class session 
4. Connect with peer for discussions, and  
5. Access their assessment reports, etc. 

A virtual classroom platform is any solution or a collection of multiple solutions that can be used for bridging the gap between students and teachers in a real-time digital environment. It’s all about establishing that real-time communication channel between the two parties involved in the endeavor of teaching and learning.  

Apart from this, educators, institutions, and businesses can accommodate additional solutions according to their unique needs. For example: 

1. If educator wants to take live one-on- one private classes in a two-way interactive environment, he/she would need a video-conferencing tool.  
2. If the educator wants to take live one-to-many classes in a two-way interactive environment, he or she would need a video-conferencing tool with group webinars or group meeting features.  
3. If the educator and learner just want to broadcast live classes in a one-way non-interactive environment, a simple live streaming tool will act as the virtual classroom platform to take live streaming classes.  

Typically, a virtual classroom is a setup that simulates the classroom environments via an online medium. Technologies are used for re-creating traditional classroom scenarios in a digital space for online teaching and learning. The concept of virtual classroom setup plays a significant role in offering incredible prospects to:  

1. Students who are looking to expand their knowledge and acquire new competencies without leaving their full-time job or investing big-time in traditional classroom courses, 
2. Subject matter experts who teach virtually and earn from a new kind of revenue stream  
3. Educational institutes looking to enter into eLearning process to drive learners from anywhere irrespective of the geographical constraints. 

Benefits of virtual classroom software  

1. Effective and efficient time management of institutes with virtual classroom software.   
2. Improves learner’s engagement and encourages them to participate through virtual classroom background.  
3. Access to educational tools to help learners grow in their curriculum. 
4. Flexibility in terms of scalability and integrating the software with some training system such as LMS. 
5. Self-reliable learning with personalized content as per the requirement.  
6. Accessed to everyone from anywhere across the globe. 
7. Virtual classroom software can be used to conduct proctored exams wherein a proctor can monitor learners taking the exams through the virtual video.  

What lies in the future for virtual classroom? 

While there are many advantages of this virtual classroom platform, there are challenges that have yet to be overcome. How to prevent piracy of online content? How do you keep a remote student from cheating? How do you even know who is sitting at that remote keyboard? These are questions that technology will help resolve in the near future.