VIRTUAL CLASSROOMS

&

ONLINE LANGUAGE GAMES

SHEBA ELSA JOSE

M.T.T.C,PATHANAPURAM

Virtual class room (VCR), as the name suggests, is a class that has the students and teachers

linked together on a network using the Internet while physically being miles apart, interacting

and studying in real time.

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.

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.

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 roomIt saves time and space – 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.

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.

Accessibility to a variety of students

Large numbers of students can benefit from distance learning

Particularly applicable to rural and remote settings

Learning would be more interesting

Not all schools have the technology, however, this is rapidly changing.

“Human aspects" of teaching is very negligible.

A power disruption is likely to interrupt your internet connection. In such a case you may get logged off from the classroom due to no internet connectivity.

One needs a fast internet connection (at least 1 Mbps) to have a smooth experience. This may not be possible at every time.

ONLINE LANGUAGE GAMES

SOME ONLINE LANGUAGE GAMES SITES:

http://www.english-online.org.uk/games/gamezone2.htm

https://www.gamestolearnenglish.com/

http://www.roadtogrammar.com/junior/

SOME BENEFITS OF ONLINE LANGUAGE GAMES

Children can exercise some creativity

Children learn a bit about setting and achieving goals

Children absorb information in a fun way

Stress in learning grammar or other language skills will be reduced