12-10-2010, 04:19 PM
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virtual classroom
Introduction and Scope of the Project
The growing popularity of Internet and e-learning introduced new terms to education, such as “virtual classroom”. May be in the near future students will not go to anywhere in order to take diploma. The concept “virtual classroom” defines a simulation of the real classroom that enables users to attend a class from anywhere through Internet and provides a learning experience. This project is intended to give both teacher and student the ability to do their jobs effectively and efficiently without even leaving their places. The project is simply described as modeling a real world object (i.e. classroom) into computer world. As in the real life the students can see their teacher writing on the board or teacher can see students chatting or anyone can want permission to ask question.
When we investigate the current “virtual classroom” projects we observe that they can be grouped mainly in two classes. In the first class the projects are designed to work on small LAN (the product of NetOP company is an example of such project) that can be used in a school or any education center. The second kind of projects that are designed to work through Internet that allows it to be used more commonly. (The product of IBM Company is an example of such project). These systems are designed according to their working environments that they have different properties due to their usage areas.
All the systems that are introduced on the web have some common features that they exist almost in all systems. These features can be listed as follows:
• A whiteboard that teacher and students use to draw images, write functions display text etc. And also teacher can play editable slides on this board. The board typically looks like “MS Paint”.
• A Group discussion Board (a chat system that enables to communicate in real-time with the on line users)
• Question and Answer Board (it is like newsgroup system in our department that is not exactly real time communication tool)
• Slide Show (an area that slides can be seen)