What is a virtual classroom? Reasons to go for it

Virtual classes are a replica of physical classes, with added distance learning benefits of file sharing, instant feedback, and interaction. 

A digital learning platform that allows teachers and students to connect online in real-time is a virtual classroom. Teachers can hold live lectures, virtual office hours, and discussions with students in an interactive setting using video conferencing, online whiteboards, and screen sharing.

A  virtual classroom  allows teachers and students to interact, communicate, and collaborate remotely. Virtual classes are part of cloud-based learning solutions (which are a part of learning management systems). Users can access virtual classrooms from various devices such as smartphones, tablets, or laptops as per their preference and convenience.

Key reasons to make virtual classrooms a part of your school:

Fellowship:

Online learning proved to be a bit lonely for students. Virtual classrooms neglect one of the essential parts of learning– meeting people. Interacting and communicating with people is also an essential part of education. Virtual classrooms are reviving the teacher-student and student-student relationship.  Discussing topics, chatting, debating, and seeing everyone in online classrooms bring face-to-face interactions such as closeness.

Instant Feedback:

Through virtual classrooms, teachers can give instant feedback to students. Students also get the chance to provide feedback to based on their lessons and instruction quality. This back and forth interaction provides both teachers and students with an opportunity to take concrete steps towards improving their performance. Talking about assessments, students are graded for their quizzes immediately right at the moment. Teachers don’t need to assess each test manually and can spend more time reviewing overall class performance.

Increased Engagement:

Online virtual classes are a place for active learning and open discussions. Various features contribute to getting learners active in their learning like a digital whiteboard, breakout rooms, screen sharing, file annotations, video playback, and quizzing. A lack of attention and engagement can lead to missed deadlines, failed examinations, and cynicism with the respective subject. Through interactive features of virtual classrooms like a quiz, a call-in interaction, or leading a debate, etc., learners stay on the edge of their seats.

Data Management:

To measure the effectiveness of your sessions, virtual classrooms provide lots of important data. Attendance reports can be generated automatically, school administration can calculate the total hours students attended the class, and students can access the chat logs for queries or accessing previous discussions. By measuring responses to call-in pop-ups and focus, compliance training tools help measure proof of presence and proof of attentiveness.

Virtual classrooms get enhanced with LEAD:

The world was a bit anxious to adapt to virtual classrooms as they were more of a trouble than being worthy in the past. However, the truth is, they are easy to adapt to now more than ever. Virtual classrooms were clunky and required to install another application, updates, and depended on a third-party application to work back then. The bottom line is that they were challenging to use. Talking about the present, virtual classes are a lot more worthy and easy to access. The readily available technology helped the majority of students to continue their studies in times of pandemic disruption.

Next time whenever you question, “what is a virtual classroom” and these benchmarks are not getting met, think again.