Virtual classrooms revolution explained at OLLE 2002

At this year’s Online Learning 2002 Europe (OLLE) event – held at ExCel in London’s Docklands on 5th and 6th March - Bob Eades, of Ascot Systems, discussed the history of virtual classrooms and explained how the virtual classrooms concept is set to change many people’s learning experiences in the next few years.

Taking part in a series of free workshops, organised by the eLearning Network (ELN) – the UK’s foremost professional association for users and developers of all forms of e-learning - outlining the leading thinking and technology in online learning.

Eades commented: “Increasingly, research indicates that more and more people are turning to e-learning as a means of acquiring new knowledge. “

According to CNN, more than 14m people in the USA are now logging on to their computers and double-clicking into virtual classrooms. With students taking undergraduate classes as well as acquiring graduate degrees in fields as diverse as nursing, business, engineering and technology, experts predict that e-learning will become a $2bn industry within four years.

“Virtual classrooms offer an excellent way of introducing elements of collaborative learning – inherent in classroom based learning – into the online learning environment. Up to now, though, technology – notably bandwidth – has hampered the development of virtual classrooms. Now this is set to change.”

Ascot Systems’ own virtual classroom – NetTutor – is gaining ground within the UK market, with organisations as diverse as BT and Magilligan Prison in Northern Ireland being enthusiastic users of the technology that allows trainers to rent virtual training facilities for some £8.30 per student day and deliver training directly to the desktop anywhere in the world.

According to Eades: “A typical NetTutor classroom provides virtual training facilities for a tutor and ten students. The NetTutor student application is downloadable for easy worldwide distribution throughout an organisation – almost regardless of bandwidth. “

Ascot Systems has opened a Virtual Training Centre offering virtual live training rooms – the equivalent of the serviced classroom. Clients can rent and operate multiple classrooms simultaneously. Classrooms can operate in tandem or in isolation from each other.

“Moreover, clients can use existing non-e-learning material to run with NetTutor. The new NetTutor service allows customers to ‘try out’ e-learning without changing their existing training infrastructure,” he added.

According to Eades, NetTutor is just one of an increasing group of modern virtual classroom systems. Each of these – specifically designed for the needs of learners in the ‘Naughties’ and taking advantage of recent technological advances - is making access to sophisticated, multimedia based learning materials available to almost anyone, anywhere at any time.

March 7th, 2002