The More Things Change……

A photograph on the front page of a local newspaper grabbed my attention. It was an image of the mother of a past student of mine as she sat in the campus library of a community college. The caption read “she speaks through a microphone attached to a headset while participating in a virtual classroom. … The class meets three times a week and requires students to communicate via e-mail or computer chat devices.”

Basically the program works with students and teachers assuming an avatar (an icon representing a user in a shared virtual reality) in a virtual classroom. The students see a classroom, a teacher and students on their computer monitor, but no one is physically in the same room. The teacher was really in his office; the students were scattered in various classrooms, their homes or other places. The application saves the time it would take to commute to the campus.

The teacher’s notes keyed onto his office computer appear on a virtual whiteboard in the virtual classroom. According to the article, “The avatars sit in seats, while the teacher … stands before them lecturing.”

“..stands before them lecturing”? Sometimes, the more things change the more they remain the same.