The Virtual Class Room allows educational institutions to have as many options as their imagination allows.
A teacher can be hired to conduct courses from anywhere in the world ! No longer do teachers have to live near their institutions. This allows for the greatest flexibly in hiring from a world-wide pool of talent and experience.
Students can take live classes from anywhere in the world ! A student can attend a class from just about anywhere in an environment that allows for direct and personal interaction with their instructor. This allows educational institutions to enroll students from anywhere internet access exists, including ships at sea and military bases. By having students take live classes at their own locations, institutions can realize large savings by not having to construct and maintain as many brick and mortar class rooms, parking and other support facilities. Liability and related insurances are also reduced or eliminated. It is possible for an entire educational institution to be created online using virtual class rooms.
Classes can more readily meet minimum enrollment requirements. No longer must an educational institution rely on a class having a certain minimum enrollment at one location. Now, a class can be run as long as enough total students are enrolled without regard to location.
Higher quality tutoring services can be offered online. There is no longer the need for tutors to travel. Tutoring services can offer high quality face to face tutoring sessions without the need and liability for tutors to travel to student's homes. The system allows for direct and personal interaction that other non-video modes do not allow. Facial expressions and non-verbal interaction is now possible. In addition, the system allows tutoring firms the opportunity to offer their services to students living in remote areas. Until now, this has not been feasible, and many tutoring services have been limited within a narrow range of their physical locations. Class rooms can be partitioned to allow for the creation of many private tutor-student being run simultaneously.
Teachers can offer a virtual office. Using the same system for direct instruction of classes, teachers can offer students a virtual office for individual consultations at mutually convenient times, where neither party has to travel.
All class sessions can be inexpensively recorded. Through use of a simple VCR, or DVD recorder, all sessions can be recorded. Better than notes, the recordings can be inexpensively and conveniently duplicated and provided to students, or used by the teacher for reference and documentation. Recordings can be used by supervisors to monitor the quality of instruction, and they can even be used to eliminate the possibility of false accusations of impropriety for both the teacher and the host institution !
Health and disability issues are reduced or eliminated. No one can catch a cold from others in a virtual class room, and participants can attend class when they might have been absent if they had to physically travel. The system's delivery mode allows greater adaptation to those with disabilities, which aids in the meeting of various disability law requirements.
Employee training sessions and business meetings can be held online. The Mega-Meeting platform has been used extensively for this application. Host institutions can use the same system they have for instruction to present training sessions, with employees attending from home, the office or at a group meeting location. For example, an employer schedules a workshop on sexual harassment. Through the use of a video projector, the assembled attendees can see the workshop presenter who can be thousands of miles away. This allows the host institution to conduct training sessions without the costs of bringing a presenter to their location, and allowing them to recruit such presenters from anywhere in the world.
Professional meetings and board meetings can be held with greater flexibility for scheduling. Board members can now attend meetings even though they are out of town. Institutions can conduct such meetings by including parties who may not otherwise available due to travel, thereby eliminating scheduling problems.
Job interviews can be accomplised online. In many arenas, potential applicants are flown in at company expense so that hiring and review committees can size up the applicant in a way no telephone interview can. Now, there is another way. Using the same system that is used to conduct classes, job interviews can be conducted where committee members can see and talk with applicants. This approach can greatly reduce recruitment and initial interviewing costs, leaving the necessity of travel for only those candidates that are chosen. Increaed effectiveness and a higher quality hiring process is fostered by allowing an employer to conduct such interviews with a large set of initial applicants, instead of by just resume sorting.