Virtual Education... What is it???

The traditional method of schooling most people have in mind involves a school house, teacher and a room full of students. However, today there are more and more types of schooling available due to increased technology and the internet. Virtual education has been defined as “…instruction in a learning environment where teacher and student are separated by time or space, or both, and the teacher provides course content through the use of methods such as course management applications, multimedia resources, the internet, and videoconferencing. Students receive the content and communicate with the teacher via the same technologies” (Kurbel, 2001). Many people group this in the same category as distance learning, which is not an entirely inaccurate relationship; it simply fails to recognize these higher forms of technology as the main mode of sharing.

Distance learning has paved the way for virtual educations by helping students realize that time and space should not hinder anyone from receiving an education. The first noted example of distance learning was in 1728 when a teacher of the new method of short hand, Caleb Philips, posted an advertisement in the Boston Gazette seeking students for lessons to be sent weekly (Holmberg, 2005). When I think that my online education is difficult, I can’t imagine doing everything I do by paper, pen and postage.

So how is virtual education impacting students of today? With computer being able to not only communicate with each other but to everyone on the internet, students have many more tools than ever before at their finger tips, literally (Shelly, Gunter & Gunter, 2010). Student’s cannot only access information on a shared server but with other computers all over the world, not to mention the information that can be shared by putting brilliant minds together via emails, skype, Facebook and so on. I believe that we are in a time where our education is limitless and we have the options to study what we want, where we want and with who we want. If I want to take a class on marine biology offered from a University in Southern Florida, by a world-renowned marine biologist… I can! And if I live in Southern California and want to teach a class offered by a college in Nebraska, I can! Okay well maybe not yet anyway. However, I think that virtual education has many benefits that can help students get the best education for them.

Article Links:

http://technologysource.org/article/rising_stars_in_virtual_education/

http://ilearnvirginia.com/node/75

http://kansaseducation.wordpress.com/virtual-schools/articles/

References:

Holmberg, Börje (2005). The evolution, principles and practices of distance education. Studien und Berichte der Arbeitsstelle Fernstudienforschung der Carl von Ossietzky Universität Oldenburg [ASF].

Kurbel, Karl (2001). Virtuality on the Students' and on the Teachers' sides: A Multimedia and Internet based International Master Program; ICEF Berlin GmbH (Eds.), Proceedings on the 7th International Conference on Technology Supported Learning and Training.

Shelly, G, Gunter, G, & Gunter, R. (2001). Integrating technology and digital media in the classroom. Boston: Course Technology.

ABOUT ME!!!

Hi everyone, my name is Laura Fugate I am a para-educator in the Lincoln public schools and I am working on my teacher certification in the area of Biology and plan to student teach next fall. I am also an assistant coach for softball at Wesleyan University hear in Lincoln and hope to help with one of the high school teams as well this fall. I just returned from a two week trip to San diego, California and may I say Daniel that Southern California is the place to be, GORGEOUS!!! I'm not sure what my future has in store; I've dabbled with the idea of getting a M.S./Ph.D. in marine biology so I have an excuse to go back. I guess we will see what happens!