Teaching at a Distance :

Building a Virtual Learning Environment – Greening ICT

Swameeka Medhi
Institute of Distnace and Open Learning, Gauhati University
Guwahati-14
[smedhi.pa@rediffmail.com, sweet.swameeka@gmail.com]

Abstract
Distance Education has resulted in major changes to the organization of educational
provision. Furthermore, as technology changes, so does the need to reorganize institutions to
lever the benefits of new technologies. The rapid development of information technology has
made available a plethora of new tools for further and higher education. Increased digital
capacity and the rise of the internet continues to bring about new categories of computing
devices, new types of softwares and new network architectures. Education in the 21st century
is best positioned to utilize the opportunities offered by ICT to lift a higher percentage of the
global population out of illiteracy and poverty. The internet allows rapid transmission of
digital multimedia information to any user in any time. Specifically, through internet the
international boundaries have shrunk and the movement and transfer of ideas across nations
by industries, academia and individuals sky- rocked. Developing a virtual environment- a
virtual classroom which will deliver tutorials, curriculum, assessment, dynamic mapping,
animated teaching, and multimedia will make it more easier for students all over to interact
and gain knowledge without the usage of print and paper. This paper aims at developing a
model for a Virtual Environment for Distance Teaching and Learning (VEDTL) that
offers a comprehensive metaphor to be used both for human-computer interface and
instructional design purposes. This paper will also focus mobilizing remote student
engagement. The proposed model will also introduce a new concept named Green ICT.
Thus the VEDTL aims to enhance and extend the facilities of the conventional universities
and making their activities more flexible technologically enriched.

Keywords : Vitrual Reality, Virtual Classrooms, Green ICT

Introduction

Distance Education has resulted in major changes to the organization of educational

provision. Furthermore, as technology changes, so does the need to reorganize institutions to
lever the benefits of new technologies. The rapid development of information technology has
made available a plethora of new tools for further and higher education. Increased digital
capacity and the rise of the internet continues to bring about new categories of computing
devices, new types of softwares and new network architectures. Education in the 21st century
is best positioned to utilize the opportunities offered by ICT to lift a higher percentage of the
global population out of illiteracy and poverty. The internet allows rapid transmission of

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digital multimedia information to any user in any time. Specifically, through internet the
international boundaries have shrunk and the movement and transfer of ideas across nations
by industries, academia and individuals sky- rocked. Developing a virtual environment- a
virtual classroom which will deliver tutorials, curriculum, assessment, dynamic mapping,
animated teaching, and multimedia will make it more easier for students all over to interact
and gain knowledge without the usage of print and paper. This paper aims at developing a
model for a Virtual Environment for Distance Teaching and Learning (VEDTL) that
offers a comprehensive metaphor to be used both for human-computer interface and
instructional design purposes. This paper will also focus mobilizing remote student
engagement. The proposed model will also introduce a new concept named Green ICT.
Thus the VEDTL aims to enhance and extend the facilities of the conventional universities
and making their activities more flexible technologically enriched.

This paper has been developed in the frames of “A Virtual Environment for Distance
Education and Training” model. Some basic pedagogical methods in a Virtual classroom
such as behaviourism, cognitivism, constructivism and collaborative learning are studied,
focusing mainly on the efficient preparation, approach and presentation of the contents,
specific designing rules (hypermedia, virtual and educational nature) are also discussed.
Virtual Classroom has its own merits and demerits which are highlighted in this paper.
Finally the VEDTL metaphor and Green ICT is discussed.

2. What is a Virtual Classroom (VC)/Virtual Environment (VE)?

This is a ‘classroom’ on the internet or a web-based learning environment where instructors

and students interact via computers. It is a new paradigm for distance and open learning
where teaching and learning is constrained by neither time nor distance. The key component
in the virtual learning process is interactivity. The use of virtual reality enables the
visualization of the educational content. We should consider the following main forms:

• on-line access to resources, programmes and services of a real university or college;

• integrated distance education on-line services realized in partnership of university,
colleges, and business organizations;
• entirely virtual establishments with academic departments, curriculum,
administration.

It is a virtual traditional classroom on the web and educates students separated by physical
distance and instructors. The entire virtual classroom consists of several virtual worlds,
wherein a user-student or teacher can navigate in order to gain new knowledge.

Merits

• Virtual Classrooms (VC) are not limited by distance, allowing students across
national and continental boundaries to access knowledge
• VCs offers the platforms to harness the brightest minds to teach a larger spectrum of
students globally
• At the long run, the benefits of VCs supersede the cost of implementation

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 • The courseware and labware could be reused over time towards saving cost in the
long term. VCs have the ability to store materials and disseminate them.
• To the developing nations, it provides a framework through which they can tap the
pool of experts in diaspora which increasingly prefer to live in the developed nations.
Demerits

• The main drawback, though video conferencing is eliminating it, is the impersonal
delivery method which could be challenging to some students.
• Another is the investment required from poor nations to fund high speed
communication system for the virtual classrooms.
• Electricity: many developing economies still suffer sporadic electricity supply
thereby making it extremely challenging to deploy the right technology to support
VCs
• Telephone facilities: though many developing economies are deploying better
telecommunication infrastructure, the telephony is still unreliable. This has a potential
to derail VCs
• Broadband telecommunications: the advent of broadband telecommunication has to
be pervasive in the universities across these nations to enable seamless integration of
VCs.
• Computer systems: though efforts have been made in many schools to acquire
computing systems, the ratio of computers to students remains very poor.
• VC Accessories: VC accessories or tools like video systems, cameras, speakers etc
are expensive and not many schools and universities in poor nations can afford them
with the low operational budgets.
• Lack of adequate manpower: the human capital is a fundamental challenge in the
design and deployment of VC. While trained experts are readily available in the
cities, they remain in low numbers in some remote areas where some of the schools
are situated.

Examples :

For instance the Globewide Network Academy (GNA, 1993), a virtual educational
consortium, is a typical case of a revolutionary model for distance education. The GNA aims
at establishing a fully accredited online university with target audience all individuals in the
world who have access to Internet. They designed the virtual environment so as to have
multiple levels of access, e.g. students who only have e-mail access, can receive a text based
instructional material and take part in asynchronous discussions. Those learners who have
WWW could receive all advantages of networked multimedia systems. The GNA got the
award of the best campus wide information system although its campus is entirely
virtual.

Similar model of educational re-conceptualisation is the Virtual Educational Environment

(VEE) created by Athena-Virtual Online University (VOU) and the GENII Project whose

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mission was to establish a Virtual Faculty of networked educators for K-12 teachers (Ducket,
et al, 1995). Although the interpersonal interaction is textual, based on a
Multi-user, Object-Oriented (MOO) environment, the VEE demonstrates the potential of
Internet to foster collaboration and conceptual change between people who have never
met face-to-face. It also shows a conceptual and virtual integration of higher and school
education.

The following figure shows a Virtual Classroom network

Fig 1: VC Network

3. The Pedagogical Approaches while building the Virtual Environment

Web-based virtual learning environments play a multilateral educational role providing not
only a platform for the presentation of educational material, but also a communication means

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among the members of a learning community. These capabilities allow the creation of a
virtual classroom, i.e. a virtual learning environment in which educators and learners are able
to perform classroom-like tasks. The virtual environment should be attractive, efficient and
pleasant to students. To ensure the educational effectiveness of the learning environment,
appropriate pedagogical methods should be considered, especially in the designing phase of
the system. The mostly applied pedagogical methods used for this purpose are outlined
below.

A. Behaviourism

Behaviourism theory considers the human mind as a black box and considers that a response
to a stimulus can be quantitatively observed, ignoring totally the effect of thought processes
occurring in mind. In essence, the behaviourism school focuses on measurable and
observable facts excluding ideas, emotions and processes performed in mind. Atkins has
studied the effect of behaviourism theory on web-based distance education defining basic
rules regarding the structure of educational content. Specifically, course designer should
divide learning content into small conceptual units and instructional steps, define sequences
of instructions using either conditional or unconditional branches and enhance learning
providing repetition loops in critical points so as to route students back in certain sections
depending on their performance on diagnostic tests. In general, a designing approach with
respect to behaviourism theory considers a student as a passive recipient and thus a well-
structured learning material is required to facilitate the acquisition of a new behaviour
through rehearsal and correction.

B. Cognitivism

In contrast with behaviourism, cognitivism theory focuses on human mind processes, such as
thought, memory etc. The primary objective of cognitivism is to discover, identify and model
the mental process performed in student’s mind during the learning process. Hence, in a
cognitive approach, student’s mind is not considered as a passive black box, but as a complex
device, which receives information from the environment, processes this information and
stores the outcome to a short-term or a long-term memory. A permanent storage requires
careful organization of data and correlation of new information with existing knowledge so
that information to be shifted from short-term to long-term memory. The designer of an
online learning environment should focus on the stimulation of students’ senses. This can be
achieved by following a designing approach, which engage students’ attention on important
information and encourage searching of knowledge. Designers should also organize
information in such a way that students are able to connect new information with existing
conceptual models in some meaningful way. Hence, information should be connected with
experiences from real life so that students can easily understand and assimilate the provided
knowledge. In any case, however, flood of information should be avoided, since it inevitably
leads to a conceptual saturation, which implies that information is not stored into the long-
term memory.

The effectiveness of cognitivism theory in online learning process is widely recognized. A

cognitive design of a web-based virtual learning environment should be based on the

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previous knowledge of learner, while the acquisition of new knowledge requires an active
mental process from the part of the learner.

C. Constructivism

Constructivism theory moves one step further than cognitivism considering that knowledge is
constructed by learners themselves based on their personal experiences. Thus, learners
acquire an active role within the learning process, since they not only absorb information, but
also connect it with previously assimilated knowledge, constructing so their own
interpretation. Therefore, in constructivism learners are not just passive recipients of external
stimulus, but they are also able to search, choose, adapt and finally interpret information
according to their conceptual background. To this end, the designing of an online learning
environment according to constructivist school focuses on the active participation of students
in learning process. Prerequisite for the fulfillment of this objective is the interaction of
learners with the educational material in order to discover or create new knowledge. Web-
based simulations constitute a typical case of such interactive learning applications, in which
each action of learner within virtual environment is interpreted in new knowledge. On the
other hand, the communication among members of a learning process is of great importance
in constructivism, since it allows the exchange of experiences and ideas resulting in a better
interpretation of the available information. One of the main benefits of constructivism theory
is that it considers learners as the centre of learning process. Consequently, the constructivist
approach implies that learners will learn more with a teacher than from a teacher and that
they will learn more with a virtual learning environment than from a virtual learning
environment.

D. Collaborative Learning

Collaboration between learners and teachers is a common request of various pedagogical

methods (e.g. constructivism). In online education, the concept of collaborative learning is
considered essential for the performance of classroom-like tasks and a prerequisite for the
creation of a virtual classroom. The term collaborative learning refers to an instruction
method, in which students at various performance levels work together in small groups
towards a common educational goal. In contrast with previous pedagogical approaches, in
which learners are considered to be isolated, collaborative learning introduces the concept of
‘group’. In groups, learners are able to cooperate, exchange ideas and share experiences in
order to acquire knowledge on specific thematic areas. Current Web technologies are
considered suitable for the development of collaborative learning environments due to their
interactive functionalities. Collaboration can be achieved in two ways, either synchronously
or asynchronously. Synchronous communication involves the participation of both students
and teacher at the same time e.g. teleconference, while in asynchronous communication,
which is more common, there is complete time flexibility. That is, teachers and students do
not need to participate in learning process at the same time (e-mail is the most common type
of asynchronous communication). The key benefit of collaborative learning is that increases
interest among learners and promotes critical thinking. Its role in distance education on the
Web is essential allowing students to work together in groups searching for solutions in

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common problems. Its application in web-based virtual environments opens up new
possibilities in distance education, creating conditions, which

3.1 Designing Requirements

A web- based virtual learning environment is not just a typical website containing 3D
graphics and containing educational content. It is a combination of virtual reality and web
technologies. The main purpose however is to fulfill the educational needs. Based on the
triple nature of Virtual Learning Environment the designing rules are classified as
follows:

A. Hypermedia Requirements

Web constitutes both a presentation platform for a learning content and a communication
means among the members of a virtual classroom. Therefore, the hypermedia nature of a
learning environment should be considered, first and foremost, by the designer of the
application.

• Webpage loading speed: The loading speed is considered as one of the most critical
usability factors of a web application and it heavily depends on the network and the
total size of a webpage.

• Local search engines: Search engines are considered necessary in websites containing a
large number of web pages.

• Navigation support: A web application should be designed in such a way, so that users
have a complete view of the overall structure of the application i.e. users should always
know their accurate location in the site as well as their possible transition options. Site
maps should be provided for the students to navigate.

• Simple User Interface: The user interface should be simple emphasizing on the
educational material rather than containing features aiming to impress users.

• Small size of pages: All significant information and possible options are preferable to be
visible in just one screen.

• Simple address and title: The website address and title should be simple, brief,
comprehensive and fully represents the educational content.

• Uniform designing: A uniform design should be followed in all pages of a hypermedia

application.

• Content update: The maintenance of a hypermedia application is of great importance for

the fulfillment of its educational objectives. Thus, the educational content should be

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 periodically updated by the administrator of the application according to the
requirements of the educational process.

• Appropriate terminology: The instructional designer should use appropriate terminology,

which is familiar and fully understandable by the learners.

B. Virtual Reality Requirements

Virtual reality technology has been recently introduced in the field of education and thus
there are no explicit rules for the designing of a learning environment containing 3D
computer graphics. Nevertheless, some basic rules should be followed for effectiveness.

• Navigation: Navigation is one of the most important usability factors of a virtual

environment. The designing of the navigation system should be user-friendly so that
non-familiar users to be able to manipulate it easily.

• Interaction: A virtual learning environment should support a natural way of interaction,

which mimics as close as possible the real world, contributing so to the easy and fast
familiarization and adaptation of users to the virtual environment. Finally, the
interactive points should be clear and supported by suitable signs inciting users to
interact with the virtual environment.

• Presence: The third factor, concerning the concept of presence in a virtual world, deals in
essence with the realism level. The realism can be enhanced by the use of textures,
sounds, lights and complex models providing users with a feeling of presence in a
virtual world

C. Educational Requirements

It is to be noted that educational software is not an electronic book aiming to substitute the
teaching in a real classroom, but a complementary educational tool whose goal is to help and
enrich the real learning process. A series of specifications should be considered by the
designer of the application based on educational requirement:

• The educational application should be usable both as a complementary tool in a

school/university classroom and as a stand-alone distance learning application.

• It should also encourage the active participation of students in the learning process.
• Emphasis should be given to the exploratory nature of the proposed educational activities.

• The learning environment should engage student’s attention and promote a deep study of
the learning content.

• The educational material should be as diachronic as possible.

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• The application should focus on issues relating to learning disabilities.

• Apart from the acquisition of knowledge, the learning environment should allow the
development of specific skills.

• Processing, modeling and simulation are major features of an educational system.

• The application should combine instructive goals from different disciplines.

• Taking advantage of the recent advances in computer technologies, the system should
promote the communication among learners.

• The designer should ensure the extendibility and reusability of the application. This will
facilitate the update of the application and reduce the cost of a future extension

Thus we see that building a virtual environment is a challenging task which requires the use
of various technologies (web, virtual reality, multimedia etc.) solely focusing on educational
needs fulfillment.

4. The VEDTL Model

The prototype VEDTL model includes

• A Virtual University (VU)

• A Virtual Help Desk
• Virtual Classrooms
• Virtual Labs (for IT programmes)
• Virtual Language Learning Center
• Virtual Café (for students to interact)
• Virtual Library
• Virtual Student Assessment cum Attendance Center
• Virtual Curriculum Delivery Center
• Virtual Post Office

The kernel of the VEDTL is the Virtual University which will consists of all the above
mentioned centers.

4.1 The Virtual University

The VU will consist all of the above mentioned sections as well as the

• The administrative section for admission and registration purposes. Students can
discuss with the VU staff here in this section.

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 • Virtual Seminar hall where lecturers can deliver lectures or seminar to a certain
virtual community.
• Virtual Reading Room contains all resource materials, and has open gateway to
the Virtual Library, Virtual Classroom.
• Virtual Workshop rooms where collaborative work/learning takes place.

4.2 The Virtual Help Desk

This is the first page a student will enter before entering the VU. The Help Desk page
will contain all information on the VU like in a traditional university.

4.3 The Virtual Classroom

Students have direct access to the educational material ( images and text) through their
interaction with a virtual board. The Virtual classroom as a whole plays a significant part on
imparting proper education.

4.4. The Virtual Lab

The Lab will be used for developing or exchanging softwares/open source code , coding
programmes and all IT related matter.

4.5 The Virtual Language Learning Center

As we can all sense that students from various nations across the globe can attend the same
VU and enter a same virtual community, a virtual language learning center will be present
where students can learn new languages or translate their languages into some other
languages.

4.6. The Virtual Café

This is in realism with a real world café where students can interact, select communities,
discussion forums etc.

4.7 The Virtual Library

The Virtual Library provides connections with external data sources contrary to the Virtual
Reading Room which consists of local resources only. Students are able to navigate within
the virtual world of the library searching for knowledge and interact with virtual objects
which connect to external e-books and e-libraries on the web.

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4.8 The Virtual Student Assessment cum Attendance Center

The role of a professor in a real learning process as well as the teaching of courses through
lectures at the university can not be substituted by notes. Advices or experiences transferred
from professors to students are considered a critical part of a learning process. Virtual reality
and multimedia technologies can reproduce a real lecture transferring students to a virtual
classroom, where videos are projected on virtual screens. This technology can also be used
for the reproduction of documentaries, conference talks, lectures from other universities and
so on .The assessment cum attendance center will deliver the student assessment, conduct
periodic test and also the attendance.

4.9 Virtual Curriculum Delivery Center

Apart from the reading room and library, the students of a particular course will be delivered
the course curriculum through this virtual center.

4.10 The Virtual Post Office (VPO)

The Virtual Post Office contains the physical contact addresses and numbers of the students
as well as the virtual IDs and virtual address (www or e-mail) that are generated to each and
every student. The VPO delivers texts, documents etc when necessary to the students.

The proposed model is a collection of HTML pages which constitute the base of the
application. Some popular e-learning platforms are

· WiZiQ (www.wiziq.com): This is a free platform which provides complete freedom of

learning. It is equipped with live audio-video communication, chat, content sharing, and
session recording capabilities. No download is required since it works with any web browser
and operating system. When combined with Moodle, it is ready for real-time online
collaboration and interaction.

· Second Life (secondlife.com): This platform offers 3D visualization and has become a
virtual classroom for major colleges and universities around the world, including Princeton,
Rice University, University of Derby (UK), Vassar, the Open University (UK).

· WebEx (webex.com) is increasingly used as an online learning platform and classroom for a
diverse set of education providers. It is a Cisco Web Meetings and Collaboration Solution
which has become popular because of its real time collaboration using an interactive
whiteboard, chat, and VOIP technology that allows audio and video sharing. Combined with
the legendry security of Cisco technology, this offers a good platform, though it is not free as
WiZiQ or Moodle.

5. Green ICT

With the advent of the internet, and communication technologies, we are driven to the idea of
the maximum use of ICT, building virtual environments for the ODL systems etc. However

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we should keep in mind that ICT is also responsible for carbon emissions. ICT can facilitate
more collaborative and less carbon intensive ways of working, but if mobile, remote, home
and flexible working is to be implemented effectively, cultural change is as important as the
technology. A key way to reduce carbon emissions is to minimize work-related journeys. For
example, UK based Salford and Bradford have both introduced full time home based
working for Benefits service staff. With the right electronic document and records
management (EDRM) and workflow monitoring systems and administrative processes in
place, both Councils have reported significant increases in staff productivity, retention and
well being, as well as rapid payback on investment.

Reducing the energy use of ICT equipment can be part of a wider organizational strategy to
reduce the carbon footprint of the estate. Significant energy and financial savings can be
made by choosing the right ICT equipment and configuring and using it in energy efficient
ways. UK CEED has created priceXtra <www.pricextra.co.uk/> which allows purchasers to
compare the environmental impact of certain products including computers. Its calculations
show that, for example, a low energy LCD monitor can be up to 75% more energy efficient
than a CRT monitor. An organization with 3000 desktops working 8 hours a day, 5 days a
week for 42 weeks of the year can save up to £46,000 p.a.

Many public sector organizations already have a corporate green procurement policy. Belfast
City Council, for example, has adopted an Environmental Purchasing Policy which actively
encourages suppliers to supply environmentally friendly products and processes and which
uses environmental criteria in the selection of suppliers and award of contracts.The
government plans to introduce a quality mark in late 2007 to help ICT buyers choose
suppliers with genuine carbon offsetting schemes

Just as important is to challenge any assumptions about regularly replacing equipment. The
manufacture of a PC may generate up to four times the carbon footprint of its lifetime use.
While it’s possible to reduce the latter by using power saving options (both electronic and
human), the former is not directly controllable. The safest policy is probably not to buy
new PCs until you really have to, and to consider replacing most of them with thin clients.

It is important for us to Focus on the development of a longer term green ICT strategy.

6. Conclusions

In this paper, I provided a prototype of a model which can be used in Indian ODL systems in
future. The mostly applied pedagogical methods such as behaviourism, cognitivism,
constructivism and collaborative learning were studied and some specific designing
requirements were analysed. Finally I focused on Green ICT and ways to save energy and
carbon emission.

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F. Modritscher, “eLearning theories in practice: A comparison of three methods”, Journal

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Roumen Nikolov & Iliana Nikolova: A Virtual Environment for Distance Education and
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Ndubuisi Ekekwe: Internet Virtual Classrooms in Developing Nations : Challenges and

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