Education
The virtual world has become very prominent in educational systems today. Goodfellow (2005) states the reason for this is because people now have to find some sort of balance between work, social lives and education. This is easier to accomplish when people have the opportunity to take online classes.
Andres Fortino and Paige Wolf (2007) found that you need to have three factors to make an online program successful in the educational sectors. First, you need to make the business case. What Fortino and Wolf (2007) mean by this is you need to make sure you have an “institutional mission, stakeholder support, and a thorough cost-benefit analysis” (p. 30). Second, you need to make sure that you have a successful approach. To have a successful approach you need to consider “how far its typical students must travel to sit in a physical classroom, what kind of access they have to the Internet, how their work schedules might affect their ability to attend classes, and what advantages the faculty might gain by using various learning tools and formats” (p. 32). Finally you need to make sure that the transition is manageable. Faculty members must be trained appropriately for a virtual environment. They need to understand that having a virtual classroom will not affect the quality of the education.
Neil Pollock and James Cornford (2002) found that virtual universities have the ability to “reshape traditional university geographies, as well as the methods, relationships, and perhaps even the ‘ethos’, of the academy” (p. 359). But in all reality Pollock and Cornford (2002) point out the virtual universities are only a “tiny fraction of current provision in higher education, and that their significance lies not so much in their actual number or market share, but in the pressures they bring to bear upon the rest of the higher education sector to adopt their methods, strategies and technologies” (p. 360).
References:
Fortino, A. & Wolf, P. P. (2007). Going the Distance. BizEd, January/February, 30-35.
Goodfellow, R. (2005). Virtuality and the Shaping of Educational Communities. Education,
Communication & Information, 5, 113-129.
Pollock, N. & Cornford, J. (2002). The Theory and Practice of the Virtual University: Working
Through the Work of Making Work Mobile, Minerva, 40, 359-373.
The virtual world has become very prominent in educational systems today. Goodfellow (2005) states the reason for this is because people now have to find some sort of balance between work, social lives and education. This is easier to accomplish when people have the opportunity to take online classes.
Andres Fortino and Paige Wolf (2007) found that you need to have three factors to make an online program successful in the educational sectors. First, you need to make the business case. What Fortino and Wolf (2007) mean by this is you need to make sure you have an “institutional mission, stakeholder support, and a thorough cost-benefit analysis” (p. 30). Second, you need to make sure that you have a successful approach. To have a successful approach you need to consider “how far its typical students must travel to sit in a physical classroom, what kind of access they have to the Internet, how their work schedules might affect their ability to attend classes, and what advantages the faculty might gain by using various learning tools and formats” (p. 32). Finally you need to make sure that the transition is manageable. Faculty members must be trained appropriately for a virtual environment. They need to understand that having a virtual classroom will not affect the quality of the education.
Neil Pollock and James Cornford (2002) found that virtual universities have the ability to “reshape traditional university geographies, as well as the methods, relationships, and perhaps even the ‘ethos’, of the academy” (p. 359). But in all reality Pollock and Cornford (2002) point out the virtual universities are only a “tiny fraction of current provision in higher education, and that their significance lies not so much in their actual number or market share, but in the pressures they bring to bear upon the rest of the higher education sector to adopt their methods, strategies and technologies” (p. 360).
References:
Fortino, A. & Wolf, P. P. (2007). Going the Distance. BizEd, January/February, 30-35.
Goodfellow, R. (2005). Virtuality and the Shaping of Educational Communities. Education,
Communication & Information, 5, 113-129.
Pollock, N. & Cornford, J. (2002). The Theory and Practice of the Virtual University: Working
Through the Work of Making Work Mobile, Minerva, 40, 359-373.
1 comment:
How are virtual communities being used in high schools or lower grades to prepare young students for college virtual communities? Would online teams be effective at a young age?
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