Technology continues to advance and develop as years go by. It has seeped its way into people's everyday lives and education is no exception.
Barriers in education are limited through technology and An Cosán, Ireland's biggest community education organization. It is one of those groups working on further removing learning barriers. An Cosán is doing this through the Virtual Community College (VCC), an education initiative that hopes to "bring about social equality and an end to poverty through education using online and mobile technology."
An Cosán realized that technology and virtual learning are the best tools for breaking down access barriers and bringing education into the comfort of people's homes "no matter what part of the country the student was in," according to Silicon Republic. VCC employs a combination of the latest technologies to form a virtual classroom, online live lectures with independent activities and assignments, and face-to-face sessions set in community partnerships.
The technology-enhanced face-to-face sessions are available in both urban and rural areas across Ireland. For VCC, An Cosán partnered with the charity organization Three, which provided highly skilled employees that provided expert website and app development, as well as social media and vital corporate governance issues like data protection.
Virtual learning gives students access to various educational options that weren't on-hand before, as well as access to course work at a time they prefer. They can also adapt their studying time to their own schedules.
Aside from these, VCC allows students to ask for support from Three employees through e-mentoring programs. The programs assign a committed tutor to a VCC student.
There's the m-learning, or mobile learning, too. M-learning caters to students who live in rural areas and have a hard time attending classes at a school for reasons such as money or they have children to care for at home.
In other news, Johns Hopkins School of Education's Center for Technology in Education has the Virtual Learning Environment, or VLE. The platform improves STEM awareness and promotes STEM learning through advanced 3D technologies usually used in the gaming industry, military and medicine.
CTE's VLE platform focuses on students who are hesitant in joining STEM and those from underrepresented groups. VLE simulates two distinct physical environments: the area surrounding Washington State's Mount St. Helens volcano and the Lunar South Pole.
Students can explore these virtual environments, as well as communicate with virtual characters and other pupils to solve STEM-related issues. Students' mathematical thinking and scientific inquiry are enhanced through the game-like process.
What do you think of technology and virtual learning's use in education? Are they effective tools in breaking down learning barriers? Share your thoughts below.