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| Home >> Virtual Education |
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| Virtual Education |
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Virtual Learning Environment (VLE) is a software system designed to support teaching and learning in an educational setting, as distinct from a Managed Learning Environment (MLE) where the focus is on management. A VLE will normally work over the Internet and provide a collection of tools such as those for assessment (particularly of types that can be marked automatically, such as multiple choice), communication, uploading of content, return of students' work, peer assessment, administration of student groups, collecting and organizing student grades, questionnaires, tracking tools, etc.
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While originally created for distance education, VLEs are now most often used to supplement the face-2-face classroom, commonly known as Blended Learning. |
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These systems usually run on servers, to serve the course to students Multimedia and/or web pages. |
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A more correct term may be a virtual environment for learning, rather than virtual learning environment. This removes any ambiguities and identifies that it is the environment which is virtual and not the learning.
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Universities and other institutions of higher education are increasingly turning to VLEs in order to: |
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Economize on the time of teaching staff, especially when they are also involved in research and administration. The extent of the economy over traditional "talk-and-chalk" teaching is not yet clear, but for instructors without web development expertise, using a VLE absorbs less time and produces a more professional result.
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Provide a service for students who increasingly look to the internet as the natural medium for finding information and resources. |
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Ensure that quality control requirements are met by providing a standard vehicle for collecting the required information
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| Facilitate the integration of distance and campus-based learning. or of learning on different campuses. |
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| In the UK schools are being encouraged to make use of Learning Platforms. |
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Virtual learning courses are not like correspondence courses where work is "delivered" to the student, completed by the student, and then sent to an instructor to be marked. Rather, in the Virtual Learning Centre's online courses, there is frequent contact with the Instructor through electronic mail, online conferences, and chat sessions. Contact is not an option but a requirement. Students and teachers are required to interact electronically. Often, a teacher will pose a question of the week which students must discuss in an electronic conference. Students also have the option to correspond privately in the form of e-mail or electronic chats with their teacher or other students. While most work may be completed at a time most convenient to the student, some instructors expect synchronous white board or chat sessions. Courses follow the traditional year/semester/trimester structure. |
