Virtual Learning features that mimic in-Person Training

Traditional education has undergone drastic changes in the last few years. Being physically present in the classroom isn’t the only learning option. The easy availability of the internet and new connectivity technologies have enabled students to access education anytime and anywhere, resulting in the online education revolution.

According to a market research report by Facts and Factors, the global E-learning market size is expected to grow to US$374.3 billion by 2026, adding to growth in the pandemic, from US$144 billion in 2019, at a 14.6% annual CAGR growth during the forecast period of 2020-2026.

Today, thousands of virtual learning platforms exist globally— from tiny startups to multi-billion dollar enterprises shaped by different user verticals. While some provide complete courses, others offer courses on every subject or topic students study in their institutes.

With technology improving every day, virtual learning has been enhanced to the point that it provides an identical teaching and learning experience for instructors and students.

The Effectiveness of Virtual Learning Tools

Virtual learning tools have taken instructor-learner interactions to an entirely new level. Today’s engaged learners are better prepared for virtual learning, enabling virtual learning providers to develop training platforms like chat, help queues, screen-sharing, whiteboards, and other features that help promote interactivity with and among learners. These features help instructors achieve the best possible visibility, monitoring, and control of learners’ learning.

Shifting from in-classroom learning to virtual learning can sometimes feel challenging, but it’s worth the effort. Here are some features that can be or should be incorporated into virtual training tools.

1. Screen Overview/Screen Sharing: These are essential features in virtual training. They enable instructors to simultaneously see the screens of all the learners’ desktops/devices or project their screens through projectors. This way, they can monitor their student’s progress or offer help if they fall behind. One of the significant benefits of these features is that they overcome geographical obstacles.
2. Virtual Training Labs: No grade is complete without hands-on practical lab experiences. Today’s technology allows teachers to emulate lab experiments virtually, just as students are meant to learn in labs on campus. These virtual labs provide learners with a safe and secure replica of software they can practice.
3. Public and Private Chat: These enable conversations between students and teachers and help students access various updates, lessons, and academic-related issues.
4. Audio-Video Content: This feature is meant for training. When learning tools offer multiple audio and video modes, instructors have complete control of how they want to handle audio and video content in the class.

Metaverse in Education

Metaverse is the blend of virtual, augmented, and physical realities that will blur the lines between online and real-life scenarios. As a result, it will become a place where people can work and learners can study.

There are several benefits that metaverse brings with it for education:
1. Learning and connecting in an immersive virtual campus
2. Enhancing real-world skilling in virtual and hybrid environments, experiential learning, and deliberate practice
3. Exploring different worlds through visualization and storytelling
4. Building human capabilities in interpersonal or difficult situations
5. Improve accessibility for people with disabilities
6. Increase data capture on learning performance

Higher education is paying attention to top tech companies by investing billions of dollars in developing new technologies for the metaverse.

From running individual classes to developing an entire “metacampus “and future “metaversities,” several universities, colleges, and other institutes of higher learning worldwide are making forays into this new technological landscape. Although the shift had already started, the acceleration is far more pronounced now.

One of the most significant advantages of the metaverse is its experience; it enables students to immerse themselves in a digital classroom environment fully. The students interact with the instructor and learn content in an interactive environment. In addition, all day-to-day activities like classes, workshops, projects, experiments, and seminars happen in real-time, enabling effective student participation.

Metaverse-based education has a huge advantage in delivering theoretical and practical knowledge. It can make abstract problems concrete. It helps sharpen students’ operational skills, provides an immersive learning experience, and improves students’ involvement in class, making learning more fun and active.

Virtual Labs in Education

A virtual lab is a teaching and learning environment designed or built to develop students’ laboratory skills. As one of the most crucial eLearning tools, they allow the student to conduct various experiments without any place or time constraints.

Virtual labs incorporate various pedagogical techniques to help learners better understand the theoretical information. These techniques include visual, active, recall-based, gamification, and storytelling.

They also offer students a realistic lab experience that will allow them to perform experiments and practice their skills in a risk-free and interactive learning environment.

Virtual labs enable students to learn, investigate and analyze complex scientific concepts in a simulated and interactive experience that can augment in-person training by creating learning moments that help the learners retain information.

Virtual labs and training are known to improve student performance and promote learning while providing instructors with a means to assess student knowledge. Another benefit of virtual labs is that they help the teacher to design and share innovative course materials with students.

How Straive Can Help

Online learning allows people to access training that would have otherwise been impossible. The power of virtual learning lies in the fact that it’s inclusive and provides everyone in a school or university with access to training in a structured and easily accessible way.

Online learning is colossal today and covers an entire gamut of learning needs. Although creating the right solution is complex, the need of the hour is to utilize the right skills and talent to improve student learning outcomes.

Straive has been at the forefront of online learning for several years. Straive has enhanced its online learning solutions with sources, processes, and technical knowledge gained from working with hundreds of global institutions and publishers.

Online learning is here to stay, and as we have seen, it has gained popularity throughout the pandemic, primarily due to normalized virtual knowledge. As a result, colleges and universities are responding not just to the current pandemic but to what the future will hold. Many higher education programs are increasing their online course offerings, which means a wider variety of options to fit the learning needs of both traditional and non-traditional students. With over 30+ years of experience in edTech, Straive can help you move seamlessly to online learning that can mimic offline training.