The Virtual Classroom – Saving the Planet

Recently, I have been teaching a lot of Internet-based classes using a remote learning technology called the "Virtual Classroom". The "Physical Classroom" is the traditional method of education where we all congregate in the same physical location and do some collaboration and learning. The trouble is, many times we have to travel to that physical location. This involves rising travel costs as well as time away from family and friends. Remote learning offers an alternative solution but can it offer the same educational experience (or better)?

I taught a class in Dallas, Texas a while back where we had people from Alaska, Hawaii, Iowa, Minnesota, Germany and North Carolina (that was me). We only had a couple local students. My vote was that any follow-up class should be hosted in Hawaii. But it made me think about training and travel budgets and how long we could afford to do this type of training. Many training budgets are cut because of those high travel costs. Of course, the internet offers a wonderful opportunity of changing that model. But many distance learning courses have a very different curriculum to those offered in the physical classroom.

Wouldn't it be great to be able to sign in to a virtual classroom without having to leave your cube (or your couch) and get the same training experience? Same curriculum, same instructors, same hands-on labs. You could ask questions of your instructor, you could watch their slide presentations, whiteboards and online demonstrations. But what about hands-on exercises? If you are anything like me, you only really learn by doing, so hands-on is critical. Well, using Terminal Services and products like VMWare and Virtual PC, students can login to a central data center and use the powerful virtual machines for the lab exercises. But what if they hit a problem during the lab? Well, Terminal Services has a nice feature called Remote Control where an instructor can take over the student's session and show them remotely how to correct the situation. This Virtual Classroom technology means that we can send out the same student guide, the same lab guide as in the Physical Classroom. The only difference is that the student also receives a headset/microphone for participation.

This is relatively new technology so we are always learning new ways of improving the experience. In our training centers we always have an afternoon break with cookies and other goodies. Not with the Virtual Classroom? Well, by popular demand, we have started mailing a box of cookies with the student materials. How's that for customer service?

Of course, there are some more serious issues. Students find it more difficult to manage their time effectively when they are trying to go through training while still in the office or at home. There are natural distractions in both places. And there is usually a boss in both places too! Students have to be creative to establish their own effective learning environment. Sometimes it is difficult to stay focused. On the upside, the sessions are all recorded, so if you are pulled away you can review the part you missed later. And the remote lab environment for the hands-on lab work is available 24 hours a day, so you can catch up there too.  

For some companies, the Virtual Classroom offers a unique solution. One large consulting company wanted to train its DBAs on SQL Server 2005 when it was released. But they did not want to pull them all off their current billable projects and send them half way across the country (or the world) for expensive training. We worked out a schedule where we would teach Virtual Classroom sessions every Monday and Wednesday from 6pm-9pm Eastern Time USA for 5 weeks. They could work on their projects by day, and sign in at night from home or office and get the just-in-time training from wherever they were - including hands-on labs. One student had to fly to Ireland on business in between sessions but signed in as normal next session. It made for a late night for him, but he did it. The interesting thing for me was that I was travelling too. I was teaching in the Physical Classroom by day and the Virtual Classroom by night. I actually taught that Virtual session from North Carolina, New York, New Jersey and Chicago at different times. I think the students got a kick out of finding out where I was each week. It shows the power and flexibility of the Virtual Classroom.

As you can see, I am a big fan of this technology. Not all instructors like the concept. They can't see the students and they can't see you. (We don't use video as it has a high bandwidth requirement and little or no value). You also have to come up with some original techniques of keeping people's attention. Review quizzes and games are always effective. The odd sneeze seems to wake people up too. (I have learnt how to use the mute button!). And we always take frequent breaks - every hour at a minimum.  However, whenever I think of an effective technique for the Virtual Classroom, it usually applies to the Physical Classroom too. They really are complementary technologies.

Which leads me to the future: we won't be able to distinguish between the two. Virtual Classroom and Physical Classroom will be combined. Local students and remote students will coexist. Training will be training. All classes will support an internet presence and will be archived for "intellectual capital" for future on-demand review.

The good news is fewer of us will be stuck in the airport or on the highway. Which is good news for the planet, right?

Cheers

Brian

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