Virtual Class Room (VCR)

How does a virtual class room work?

Using Web-based interactive programs both the trainers and the learners interact in a “real” time environment. At the appointed time both the students and trainers come online to attend the class. Just like a regular, conventional class. Once a session starts, everyone is a part of the live session that is seen by all the students, however away they are from each other. Virtual class room works using audio and video conferencing tools that are easily configurable and can also be used to show pre-recorded video tapes and CDs as well. Virtual class rooms have redefined e-Learning in today’s world.

Students can interact with the trainers and they can solve their queries instantly online. Not only this, students can also interact with each other with the help of a chat tool feature. This is just like ordinary chatting tools used by Web users all around the world. More and more advanced e-Learning solutions are being designed everyday, at the heart of which are the virtual class rooms, which are being touted as a better option to regular class rooms.

Virtual class room have an edge over conventional class rooms as they can be recorded and played back verbatim by the learners, something not possible in a regular class. Just like the class room has a black board, virtual class room also has a software tool called whiteboard – which can be used to explain certain queries and draw diagrams, etc.

Other standard tools like presentations, image files, html files etc can also be uploaded on the whiteboard – thus if you already have some study material then it can be easily plugged into virtual class room. Online test and evaluation feature are also available that constantly gauge the extent of understanding of the trainee and provide feedback on assignments.

Benefits of virtual class room

• It saves time – Conventional learning processes like class rooms require space and cost more, in terms of infrastructure required, getting all the learners and trainers together, etc. virtual class room and other e-Learning tools, on the other hand, save space and cost much less; it can accommodate a large number of students within the same training solutions at no extra costs.
• Excellent for executives on the move – e-Learning is fast becoming the ideal choice for the executive on the move.
• Interaction between teachers and students, just like a regular class room with an added advantage of recording and sharing data, information and entire e-Learning sessions.
• Storage of whole process of training through an Automatic Repository Creation on the computer for future reference.
• Standardization of content.
• Due to standardized content, a change of trainer does not hamper the training session.

Opportunities in virtual class room

Great opportunities exist in the arena of Virtual class rooms in the fields of:

• Skill and process training by experts to diverse group of physically distanced employees.
• When only a few experts are available –and it is not possible to bring them to a regular class room.
• Great opportunities also exist in areas new induction training where a standardized induction program will help a new entrant.
• When the organization has employees spanning continents it will be useful to have virtual class room’s for them all.

In fact the whole world is now becoming a global class room with colleges, institutes even Universities holding virtual classes for its students and the corporate world using it to train its employees across the globe!