by on 09/06/2021 2662
Today, you will not surprise anyone with virtual classrooms, which at the moment are a popular form of education in many countries such as China, South Korea, Italy, and Iran. The reason for everything is a pandemic. Online education emerged as a safe and viable option for education continuity as the COVID-19 pandemic turned personal and professional worlds upside down. Even before the pandemic, the global e-learning market was already seeing massive annual global growth. It is expected to reach $336.98 billion by 2026, at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 9.1% from 2018 to 2026.
Thanks to the proliferation of online education, many teachers and students worldwide were able to continue their studies and even improve the quality and speed of this process due to school management software. Every day there are fewer and fewer offline classes, and there are many causes for this. Virtual classrooms are the very train that is best to get on as soon as possible, otherwise, it will move, and you will not catch up with it.
In this article, you will learn what exactly is meant by the phrase "virtual classroom" and define for yourself the basic elements without which its existence is impossible. We will also share the benefits and tips for choosing and introducing online education tool and software for your school. In addition, we highlighted the main disadvantages of the implementation of these technologies that can harm the educational ecosystem.
First and foremost, we need to understand such a concept as “Virtual Learning Environment” to figure out what the virtual classroom is. VLE is a set of teaching and learning tools designed to flatter students' learning experience and bring the education environment closer to normal as offline by including computers and the Internet in the learning process.
The main components of a VLE include:
In fact, a virtual classroom is the same VLE, only with live cooperation between teachers and pupils. The main feature is that this system also includes online discussion in real-time. Online education environment allows you not to lose such an important parameter as human communication, which is absent in many online courses today, and all this is due to the use of software with the online video chat by schools. Such online education tool allows teachers and other participants to interact with each other and with learning materials seamlessly. Thanks to the group video call function, anyone can ask a question or express doubt about the topic under study and get an instant answer. This school software and type of education provides many benefits that we will now discuss in more detail.
There is an opinion that virtual classrooms' technology does not have the ability to conduct lessons with a huge number of participants, but this is not the case because they are not usual video conferencing tools. Many schools already utilize virtual classroom software to provide access to students who are not able to attend offline lessons, and their number varies up to hundreds of students. In addition, the virtual classroom tools use software that can cope with the sudden increase in load when many participants are streaming video and real-time chat. Another contrast with other video conferencing tools is that such online education offers an attached set of essential additions to a learning environment.
Virtual classroom software enables participants to:
As for the usual lessons, it can be difficult to find a room that can accommodate a huge number of people, to say nothing about maintaining general discipline there. But virtual classrooms also include other software, such as Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) or Learning Management System (LMS), that can manage and control even an entire school's behavior. Such school management software allows teachers to forget many simple but time-consuming actions that took too much time. The fact is that school management software has the ability to automate the learning process and perfectly complements the virtual class software system for schools and other educational institutions, encompassing a huge volume of both their work and their audience.
To run a virtual classroom, you need a minimum of effort since this technology with its software tools is fully available thanks to the Internet and cloud hosting solutions. This allows many countries to find qualified teachers and raise the level of education anywhere in the world. In addition, it should be borne in mind that this parameter is of great value due to the accessibility to participate from several devices that support this school software.
To get started, you need basic requirements such as:
It can also be helpful to have a camera to show information visually. It allows for a greater bond between the student and the teacher and makes it easier to develop a real human connection. And yet, a virtual classroom can exist even without this requirement.
Another important benefit is instant results and returns during virtual classrooms. The fact is that they include both asynchronous and synchronous forms of learning. This allows students to get the most out of such training because there is always a connection between all the virtual class participants, regardless of whether there is live communication through video conferencing.
Both offline and online virtual classrooms help:
With the powerful tools and software applied to virtual classrooms, you can accelerate your learning progress as well as have a special impact on personalized learning. For example, a school management system such as ERP will help teachers save time with a lesson builder and help them find the best teaching methods for a particular student. Educators will be able to create a quality lesson plan in 10 minutes by selecting appropriate assignments based on the lesson purpose in the constructor. It adapts specifically to their type of activity. Even without this school management software, teachers will be able to give students homework faster and easier to monitor progress due to the fact that educational materials are online.
Since users go digital during the use of virtual classrooms, this makes possible making notes for each particular student. This can help teachers collect data for statistics and analysis of their group of students to track any member of the group's progress and knowledge. Student management system is also used for the most comfortable and fast data collection.
Collecting data is a great method to:
In general, virtual classrooms with school management software are in many ways more profitable than traditional classes. Controlling conventional classrooms is not only difficult but also expensive. The cost of training in virtual classrooms is also lower than in conventional ones.
Also, cost advantages include:
This form of online education has all of the above advantages only due to its features. Excluding one of them exacerbates the benefits of its use. Check out their list to avoid this and get the most out of this type of education.
Effective virtual classrooms should have:
Each new technology that came into our lives has always made them easier in one way or another. But besides the stipulated advantages, there are also certain disadvantages of such online education form. Of course, they have little evil, and yet they are. Let us take a look at them closer.
This article was first published on LittleLives.
Written By LittleLives