Virtual Learning Environments (VLEs), such as WebCT©, BlackBoard© and Moodle©, are increasingly popular in education, as they are an easy way for teaching and learning. The dynamic adoption of VLEs from Universities was a result of the transmission from Web 1.0 to Web 2.0 which allowed learners not only to view and download material, but to actively participate in their learning process through collaboration, interactivity and flexibility. Specifically, they offer tools where teachers can easily:
- deliver course material embedding audios, videos, animations and simulations to it;
- deliver online computer-marked assessments supported by feedback;
- support electronic submission of assignments supported by feedback;
- check students assignments for plagiarism (TurnitinUK Assignment);
- interact through collaboration (synchronous or asynchronous) with their students (wikis, blogs, journals, discussion forums);
- provide information on selective portions of course materials;
- support team and group work along with the individual (blogs, wikis,discussion forums);
- support a virtual classroom conditions enabling dynamic interactions among participants through on-the-fly, video conference, etc.;
- track the number of students viewing a course; and/or
- get useful statistical analysis from the students’ participation and performance in the online course.
Overall, VLEs can be used to support both on-campus or off-campus courses and can facilitate e-learning and blended learning. The main advantage of VLEs is that is easy to use learning environments where teachers can control the teaching process as if they are in traditional classrooms.
Virtual Learning Environments by Maria Limniou is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.
Computers in Education and not only 