VIRTUAL EDUCATION AND THE RACE TO THE BOTTOM Dr.

Parth Sarathi Pandey Lecturer, Anand College of Education, Agra

Email Id- neetaparthsarathi@gmail.com

Mrs. Neeta Pandey Lecturer, Anand College of Education, Agra

Abstract
Without doubt, the most radical changes in the history of higher education have come about through technology. Certainly the huge universities and giant enrollments that began in the 1950s and 1960s could not have happened without the advent of all the technology that makes possible a university larger than many small cities. By the early twenty first century, though, there was a new kind of higher education emerging, one again brought about by technological change, but representing a total, revolutionary shift in the nature of higher education. This new in the nature and quality of higher education. Despite the tremendous changes in higher education made possible by technology in the latter third of the twentieth century, for the most part the university at core retained much of its traditional structure, during the period. Admittedly, this period saw the phenomenal growth of huge state and regional universities, the development of classes of more than 500 students at a time ( made possible by computer-scanned tests and machines That track attendance with the swipe of a students identification card), burgeoning technical and business degree programs, and much else. Truth be told, the basic structure a professor in a room with twenty or thirty students continued from the past. Videotaped courses and the like were mostly failures: for the most part, the give and take of the classroom was essentially different in 1999 from1899. But this ageless social structure of the classroom was to change radically with the advent of VIRTUAL EDUCATION. Virtual education refers to instruction in a learning environment where teacher and student are separated by time or space, or both, and the teacher provides course content through course management applications, multimedia resources, the Internet, videoconferencing, etc. Students receive the content and communicate with the teacher via the same technologies. There is no lack of speculation and theorization on the current and future roles of virtual schools. However, when one looks at virtual schools through the prism of the role of calendarsthe chronological superstructure of schoolsa different, rather less theoretical

picture emerges. Many e-learning institutions call themselves virtual schools, but there is a continuum from bricks-andmortar schools with elements of virtual schooling, to true virtual schools where all educational teaching and learning occurs in the virtual environment. At this time, more tend to have elements of virtual schooling than to be true virtual schools. Because of this situation, we will mainly refer to virtual schooling except for those situations where a true virtual school is in view. Much of the discussion of virtual schooling is ahistorical: From documents extolling virtual schools one would think virtual schooling dates from the widespread growth of personal computers and the World Wide Web in the mid- 1980s, whereas much of the structure is directly attributable to distance education which has existed for nearly two centuries. Virtual Education is designed for future applications of virtual reality technology to the field of distance education. Virtual reality is being used for several education uses. Two of the most prominent uses are: advanced simulation training; and virtual education as distance instruction programs evolve with more higher-order VR applied science. Virtual reality is, even now, being used to train physicians, aircraft pilots, soldiers, and people in other professions. With respect to distance education, the virtual education revolution is, even now, underway. Distance instruction that started with basic text and image exchange, is evolving into educational programs that involve the human brain multidimensionally and interactively through several senses. While three-dimensional (holographic) virtual instructors do not currently lecture around the globe, this may happen some day in the not-so-distant future. For unique material, please see threedimensional data analysis . Virtual reality can also help physicians to discern the borders of diseased tissue and extract it from healthy tissue nearby. VR-guided medibots enable microsurgical procedures on a much tinyer scale and with more accuracy than is possible with traditional surgical operations. Macro scale motion by the robotic controls by a surgeon is translated down to micro movements of the robotic elements within the patient. virtual reality and telerobotics discusses further information. History of virtual learning environments The use of VLEs, while not as extensive as in Europe and the U.S.A., is increasing in this part of the world. There is a rapid uptake of communications technologies in the tertiary sector of education but it is uneven and not without criticism (Brabazon, 2003). Watching developments elsewhere from this perspective on the edge of the worlds stage it is difficult not to conclude that technological developments in education are driven by a complex set of forces that include not only the enabling factor of the convergence of the technologies but also the economics of globalization and the politics of technocapitalism. There is a case to be made that the arrival of the virtual classroom whilst creating a paradigm shift in the ways teaching and learning are delivered also presents a range of opportunities and threats for both the teacher and the learner and offers significant and particular challenges for small local tertiary institutions in small countries. 1728 : March 20, Boston Gazette contains an advertisement from Caleb Phillipps, 2

"Teacher of the New Method of Short Hand," advising that any "Persons in the Country desirous to Learn this Art, may by having the several Lessons sent weekly to them, be as perfectly instructed as those that live in Boston." 1874: Institutionally sponsored distance education began in the United States in 1874 at Illinois Wesleyan University. 1883: The Correspondence University of Ithaca, New York (a correspondence school) was founded in 1883. 1892: The term distance education was first used in a University of Wisconsin Madison catalog for the 1892 school year. 1906: The University of WisconsinExtension was founded; the first true distance learning institution. 1920: Sidney Pressey, an educational psychology professor at Ohio State University, develops the first "teaching machine."[6] This device offered drill and practice exercises, and multiple choice questions. 1953 The University of Houston offers the first televised college credit classes via KUHT, the first public television station in the US. The live telecasts ran from 13 to 15 hours each week, making up about 38% of the program schedule. Most courses aired at night so that students who worked during the day could watch them. By the mid-1960s, with about one-third of the station's programming devoted to education, more than 100,000 semester hours had been taught on KUHT.

1953-1956 B. F. Skinner develops "programmed instruction" and an updated "teaching machine". 1957 Frank Rosenblatt invented the "perceptron" in 1957 at the Cornell Aeronautical Laboratory in an attempt to understand human memory, learning, and cognitive processes. This was the beginning of machine learning. PLATO (Programmed Logic for Automated Teaching Operations) system developed at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign Teaching Machines Inc, a group of psychologists produced a series of programmed learning texts. The texts were based on the work of B.F. Skinner, breaking complicated tasks to a one-step-at-a-time activity (terminal learning objectives). Grolier and TMI marketed Min-Max (a teaching machine) with machine programs and programmed text books. 1963 Ivan Sutherland develops Sketchpad, the first graphical user interface for a computer, and publishes a description of it in his PhD. dissertation at MIT. The first computer for instruction is installed at Orange Coast College, California.

1960

The OCC program leads the way. Bernard Luskin serves as director of the first teacher education program funded by the Federal Government under the Educational Professions Development Act to train develop the national curriculum for data processing and train the first 100 teachers. 1964- The Computer Assisted Instruction Laboratory is established at Pennsylvania State University, College of Education 1965Research in the field of computer assisted instruction began in France at the universities in Paris, Grenoble and Toulouse.

1970- Computers first used in elementary schools (Grades 7 and 8) in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, Canada. 1974- Murray Turoff founds the Computerized Conferencing and Communications Center at NJIT and over the next 15 years conducts an immense amount of research on Computer-mediated communication (CMC) with Starr Roxanne Hiltz. Much of this is on its applicability to the "Virtual Classroom", including field trials in the 1980s. The specifications for EIES 2 are particularly seminal - note in particular the material on roles, resources and hypertext.

Launched in June 1974, Creative Computing was the first computer magazine for general readers and hobbyists. The Jan-Feb 1976 issue had an article on "Learning with Computer Games".

1979- An article by Karl Zinn in Educational Technology describes the uses of microcomputers at the University of Michigan. Uses included "word processing, extending laboratory experience, simulation, games, tutorial uses, and building skills in computing.

1986- Tony Bates publishes "Computer Assisted Learning or Communications: Which Way for Information Technology in Distance Education?", Journal of Distance Education/ Revue de l'enseignement a distance, reflecting (in 1986!) on ways forward for e-learning, based on 15 years of operational use of computer networks at the Open University and nine years of systematic R&D on CAL, viewdata/videotex, audio-graphic teleconferencing and computer conferencing. Many of the systems specification issues discussed later are rehearsed here. 1987- In 1987, NKI Distance Education in Norway starts its first online distance education courses. The courses were provided through EKKO, NKI's selfdeveloped Learning Management System(LMS). The experiences are described in the article NKI Fjernundervisning: Two Decades of Online Sustainability in Morten Flate Paulsen's book Online Education and Learning Management Systems which is available online at Online Education and Learning Management Systems 1988- Probably the first large-scale use of computer conferencing in distance teaching when the Open University UK launched DT200 Introduction to Information Technology with 1000 students per year. 1990- In the history of virtual learning environments, the 1990s was a time of growth, primarily due to the advent of the affordable computer and of the Internet.

Formal Systems Inc. of Princeton, NJ, USA introduces a DOS-based Assessment Management System. An internet version was introduced in 1997.

1991- The history page of the TEDS company states that they developed the first Learning Management System. 1992- CAPA (Computer Assisted Personalized Approach) system was developed at Michigan State University. It was first used in a small (92 student) physics class in the Fall of 1992. Students accessed randomized (personalized) homework problems through telnet. 1994- In 1994, NKI Distance Education in Norway starts its second generation, online, distance education courses. The courses were provided on the Internet through EKKO, NKI's self-developed Learning Management System . The technological revolution and globalization make possible the existence of a new social-virtual space for human relationships and hence a new information and communication society, where education needs to be redefined in order to educate the future citizens properly. To perform this update of the educational system and adapt it to the new challenges, the virtualisation of education becomes an innovative and successful proposal, because it combines both distance training with new information technologies (IT) and the internet to make the learning processes easier. This virtual education will demand changes in the lecturers' role and profile and it will have important consequences 5

not only in their initial training but also in their long-term training so that they are prepared to face the new educational demands successfully. Training regarding technology must be paid much more attention in the first stage of teacher training because it should go further than the classroom. Vision is probably the single most important sense through which human beings receive information about their setting, but interaction is bidirectional. Not only do humans receive information from their setting, but people also affect their environment. This is true in artificially constructed worlds in addition to the real world. Vision may be dominant in communication from computing systems to people, but touch and motion (called "kinesthetics") currently dominate interaction from humans to computing systems. Human-to-computer communication based on hand and body motion is much farther developed than human-to-computer interaction built on eye motion. Characteristics of virtual education Virtual education is a term describing online education using the Internet. This term is primarily used in higher education where so-called Virtual Universities have been established. Virtual courses a synonym is online courses are courses delivered on the Internet. "Virtual" is used here to characterize the fact that the course is not taught in a classroom face-to-face but through some substitute mode that can be associated with classroom teaching. That means people do not have to go to the real class to learn. A virtual program (or a virtual course of studies) is a study program in which all courses or at least a significant portion of the courses are virtual courses Communication and Interaction Students in virtual education typically acquire knowledge in a uni-directional manner first (e.g. by studying a video, reading a textbook chapter). Subsequent discussions of problems, solving exercises, case studies, review questions, etc. help the students to understand better what they learned before. Electronic media like a discussion forum, chat room, voice mail, e-mail, etc. are often employed for communication. Homework assignments are normally submitted electronically, e.g. as an attachment to an e-mail. When help is needed, lecturers, tutors, or fellow students, or a help desk are available, just like in a real university. The difference is that all communication goes via electronic media. A virtual learning environment (VLE) is a system that creates an environment designed to facilitate teachers in the management of educational courses for their students, especially a system using computer hardware and software, which involves distance learning. In North America, a virtual learning environment is often referred to as a "learning management system" (LMS).

A virtual learning environment (VLE) is a software system designed to support 6

teaching and learning in an educational setting, as distinct from a Managed Learning Environment, (MLE) where the focus is on management. A VLE will normally work over the Internet and provide a collection of tools such as those for assessment (particularly of types that can be marked automatically, such as multiple choice), communication, uploading of content, return of students' work, peer assessment, administration of student groups, collecting and organizing student grades, questionnaires, tracking tools, etc. New features in these systems include wikis, blogs, RSS and 3D virtual learning spaces. While originally created for distance education, VLEs are now most often used to supplement traditional face to face classroom activities, commonly known as Blended Learning. These systems usually run on servers, to serve the course to students Multimedia and/or web pages. In 'Virtually There', a book and DVD pack distributed freely to schools by the Yorkshire and Humber Grid for Learning Foundation (YHGfL), Professor Stephen Heppell writes in the foreword: "Learning is breaking out of the narrow boxes that it was trapped in during the 20th century; teachers' professionalism, reflection and ingenuity are leading learning to places that genuinely excite this new generation of connected young school students - and their teachers too. VLEs are helping to make sure that their learning is not confined to a particular building, or restricted to any single location or moment." A VLE is a computer program that facilitates computerized learning or e-learning. Such e-learning systems are sometimes also called Learning Management System (LMS), Content Management System (CMS), Learning Content Management System (LCMS), Managed Learning Environment (MLE), Learning Support System (LSS), Online Learning Centre (OLC), OpenCourseWare (OCW), or Learning Platform (LP); it is education via computer-mediated communication (CMC) or Online Education. A more correct term may be a virtual environment for learning, rather than virtual learning environment. This removes any ambiguities and identifies that it is the environment which is virtual and not the learning. The term virtual may also contribute to confusion, suggesting that the learning is not real or authentic. In the United States, CMS and LMS are the more common terms, however LMS is more frequently associated with software for managing corporate training programs rather than courses in traditional education institutions. In the United Kingdom and many European countries the terms VLE and MLE are favored; however, it is important to realize that these are two very different things. A VLE can be considered a subsystem of an MLE, whereas MLE refers to the wider infrastructure of information systems in an organization that support and enable electronic learning on a wider scale. In fact a rather pedantic reading of the term MLE could be extended to encompass the physical environment in which learning takes place (i.e. a school). Also the use of VLE avoids confusion with the use of LMS to mean "Library Management System" (which is more commonly referred to as Integrated Library System, or ILS, in the United States).

Becta, in the UK, have coined the term learning platform to cover both MLE and VLE as used in the schools sector. 'The term learning platform describes a broad range of ICT systems used to deliver and support learning. Through a learning platform, hardware, software and supporting services are brought together to enable more effective ways of working within and outside the classroom. At the heart of any learning platform is the concept of a personalized online learning space for the pupil. This space should offer teachers and pupils access to stored work, e-learning resources, communication and collaboration with peers, and the facility to track progress.' Instruction modes for virtual education Many virtual study programs are mainly text based, using HTML, PowerPoint, or PDF documents. Multimedia technologies have been investigated for many years and eventually found their way into practice. Today a wide spectrum of instruction modes is available, including the following: Virtual Classroom: A virtual classroom is a learning environment created in the virtual space. The objectives of a virtual classroom are to improve access to advanced educational experiences by allowing students and instructors to participate in remote learning communities using personal computers; and to improve the quality and effectiveness of education by using the computer to support a collaborative learning process. The explosion of the knowledge age has changed the context of what is learnt and how it is learnt the concept of virtual classrooms is a manifestation of this knowledge revolution. Hypertext courses: Structured course material is used as in a conventional distance education program. However, all material is provided electronically and can be viewed with a browser. Hyperlinks connect text, multimedia parts and exercises in a meaningful way. Video-based courses are like face-to-face classroom courses, with a lecturer speaking and Powerpoint slides or online examples used for illustration. Video-streaming technologies is used. Students watch the video by means of freeware or plug-ins (e.g. Windows Media Player, RealPlayer). Audio-based courses are similar but instead of moving pictures only the sound track of the lecturer is provided. Often the course pages are enhanced with a text transcription of the lecture. Animated courses: Enriching text-oriented or audio-based course material by animations is generally a good way of making the content and its appearance more interesting. Animations are created using Macromedia Flash or similar technologies. These animations help understand key concepts and also allow for better retention of learning. Web-supported textbook courses are based on specific textbooks. Students read and reflect on the chapters by themselves. Review questions, topics for discussion, exercises, case studies, etc. are given chapterwise on a website and discussed with the lecturer.

Class meetings may be held to discuss matters in a chatroom, for example.[2] Peer-to-peer courses are courses taught "on-demand" and without a prepared curriculum. A new field of online education has emerged in 2007 through new online education platforms. References : Patil,V.T.(2002)Virtual Education: Dimentions of Educational Resources.Authors Press: Ghaui Claude, Jain Nitin, Bahhore Vivek (2005)Knowledge Based Virtual Education:User Centered Paradigms.Springer: Kulandai Swamy,V.C.(2007)Education for Knowledge Era (Open and Flexible Learning).Cogan page India Pvt. Ltd. Parhar ,Madhu(2007)Satellite in Education: Critical Knowledge Base for EduSAT.Shipra Publication: