E-learning in virtual classrooms may not be just a fancy IT implementation for schools, but one that addresses real space constraint issues in emerging economies.
According to Karl Engkvist, senior vice president at Blackboard International, a software provider specializing in e-learning products, extending the physical classroom to a virtual space may be the next most immediate solution to countries where facilities are limited.
"In fast developing economies like China, people in tertiary institutes have gone from 8 million to 24 million in the last three years. The Chinese can literally not build enough classrooms for this demand," said Engkvist in an interview with ZDNet Asia.
He offered a scenario where a classroom which meets three times a week could replace one of those sessions with a "virtual" meeting online. This frees the classroom space to be used, theoretically raising the capacity of the physical building by 30 percent, he added.
Similarly in India, e-learning is bringing education to harder-to-reach rural areas in the country. Viraf Kalyaniwalla, head of operations at Learn Smart India, which provides an e-learning platform, said recently such portals help extend education to towns where there are fewer coaching centers for students.
Kalyaniwalla claimed that in spite of lack of marketing, nearly 25 percent of Learn Smart India's students belong to smaller cities and towns in India.
Blackboard's Engkvist noted that Asian cultures tend to embrace e-learning from an added social angle. "I saw in China and Japan that students needed to engage more. Using technology to communicate in the classroom made [some] more comfortable than having to immediately formulate their thoughts when called upon," he said.
Supplementing the real classroom with a virtual one also prepares students for aspects of corporate culture, which schools often do not, Engkvist added. He said the virtual environment where group work is encouraged, as well as having to communicate via the computer mimics the office environment, which often relies heavily on e-mail and instant messaging between employees.
However, this new culture may rub some faculty members the wrong way. "For students, the technology sells itself. For faculty, this is not yet true," said Engkvist, with a laugh.
"Professors and teachers don't want to be less capable than their students, technology-wise. There is anxiety and skepticism but people come around quickly," he added.
Faculty members immediately appreciate "menial" tasks being handed over to computers--studies have shown that the task of grading papers drops from 10-hours to 3 seconds when done electronically, he said.
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