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Why you should use a Virtual Learning Environment

In the last 10 years, education has benefited from a real e-revolution - most schools and
universities now have a functioning Virtual Learning Environment (VLE), at the heart of their
1. What is a VLE?

teaching and e-learning programmes – a virtual ‘shadow’, if you will. A VLE, or learning
platform, is an online system that allows teachers to share educational materials with their
pupils via the web. Examples include Moodle, WebCT and Blackboard. For a student to be
able to access a ‘Virtual’ room as either a duplicate or extension of their physical classroom is
a clear advantage for learners and teachers alike. Every educational establishment ought to
integrate a VLE into their lessons and allow it to become second nature to learners and
educators outside of the classroom. Here are some reasons why:

1. Communication – opens up an infinite number of channels in the format of forums,


2. What are VLE resources and its

discussion threads, polls, surveys – instant feedback either as a group or individually


2. Producing work – students do not physically have to find their teacher to hand in work
due to secure virtual ‘hand-in’ folders that have time windows
3. Resource hub – teachers have infinite online storage space for ppts, docs, worksheets
etc. that can either be secure or shared with students
4. Dynamic home pages – teachers have the opportunity to create an exciting virtual space
advantaged?

to represent their room/subject


5. Links to outside sources – pathways to all other online learning spaces are linked via the
VLE
6. Embedded content – YouTube, BBC, newspapers can all be embedded as the dynamic
feed of the homepage
7. Podcasts & videos – both teacher- and student-produced podcasts and videos have a
shared platform; again, either secure or shared
problem with

However, most establishments do not get the choice of a Virtual Learning Environment as the
3. What is a

local education authority (LEA) are often contracted to a certain company – Fronter, Moodle,
VLEs?

Frog, LP+, Kaleidos, etc. are the most common VLEs of choice.

Virtual Learning Environment (VLE) snapshot

Although the benefits of using a Virtual Learning Environment in schools are obvious, there
are plenty of sticking points to consider. As the learners themselves are all ‘Digital Natives’,
the educators tend to be starting from a disadvantage as their own IT skills tend to be lacking
when compared to the current IT savvy youth of today. Making any VLE as dynamic or
problematic for teachers?
4. Why using VLEs can be

versatile as Facebook, Tumblr and Twitter is a tall order and virtually impossible for an IT
specialist teacher, let alone a humble English teacher! This competition for students’ ‘screen-
time’ is hardly a fair fight – one possible reason why nearly all VLEs are described by teachers
as ‘clunky’, ‘too basic’ and ‘frustrating’. Students do not wax lyrical about them either –
‘outdated’, ‘boring’ and ‘a waste of time’ are the opinions of one class of Media students.

One of the negative issues about VLEs in general is the fact that, possibly due to the security
of the school’s MIS data, users have to physically go and ‘log-in’ to their VLE – no ‘pinging’ of
new posts, discussions, comments etc. to their mobile devices – and this is a major downside
to most students and staff.
Embedding videos from the BBC, YouTube etc. is a default set-up for first time VLE room

6. what types of resources can be more effective in


creators – this ensures that your visitor has a multi-sensory experience, rather than simply
viewing titles of resources with attached links to folder after folder. The lure of the VLE
5. Why VLEs can become a ‘dumping ground’?

becoming a ‘dumping ground’ for resources is sometimes hard to resist, as this way does
indeed tick the box of enabling your students to access your course content. However,
spending the time to create a room with an attractive ‘skin’ is well worth the effort – it’s easy
to introduce first-time students to a VLE – the challenge is holding their ‘screen-time’ long
engaging students’ attention?

enough for them to benefit from their visit. Interactive polls, links to videos and interesting
images via Prezis are far more effective than lines and lines of text that must be ploughed
through by an already switched-off student.

VLE rooms can be created in absolutely any style, shape and format. Dynamism is a key factor
when producing rooms in Fronter as maintaining the interest of the visitor makes or breaks
their e-experience of the school VLE. With increasing usage of the internet, Virtual Learning
Environments are indeed the future of all educational establishments. BBC Active Video for
Learning offer licenses for BBC television programmes to be used by educational
establishments for the purposes of education and training.

Source:
http://www.bbcactive.com/BBCActiveIdeasandResources/WhyyoushoulduseaVirtualLearningEnviron
ment.aspx

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