Campus Engagement Challenge: The Role of Virtual Learning In Universities Around The World by @phlexygee

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Hello guys, I hope you are doing great in your respective residents. I find the topic at hand very interesting, and I have therefore decided to share my quota, as I have experienced virtual learning in my university, through its designed Learning and Management System.

Without further ado, I will begin to tackle the underlying questions.

Will virtual learning shape education and Learning the way we know it?

Yes, vitual learning has already shaped the education sector and the traditional learning that we are familiar with, and believe such trend will proceed with better innovations.

Virtual learning pushes students to be ICT literates, due to the need to access lessons delivered by the lecturers and the submissions of assignments by the students.

With virtual learning, students horizon broadens outside the box, whiles their research skills improve.

Another way vitual learning has shaped education and the normal mode of learning is that, it paves way for vast audience who reside at their comfort zones to learn, whiles they attain certificates when possible, after going through the learning process.

Virtual learning demands ICT tools, therefore every student is required to have access to the suitable tools and materials that will help to facilitate the learning process, meanwhile the accessiblity and utilization of these tools comes at a cost.

Do you think your university will incorporate virtual learning into its curriculum?/ State the reason for the answer

Actually, my school University of Education, Winneba has Incorporated virtual learning into its curriculum.

This occurred as a result of the Covid-19 pandemic.

Our school got closed down, so a special website www.moodle.uew.edu was built for us to learn all our various courses virtually by signing up with our school credentials, whiles our assignments and exams were conducted on it, in the process of learning and after being done with our respective courese.

For some reasons, the moodle website was replaced with UEW Vclass, which is currently functional. For some courses, we learn 2 hours face to face in the lecture halls, whiles we exhaust the remaining 1 hour on the website for the rest of the lesson making a total of 3 credit ours.

As a regular student, I logged in the Vclass by clicking on the Regular and Sandwich students tab with my student ID and password.
The image on the right, is the menu of the UEW website after being logged in, although the app has a slightly different interface.

Above are images of the UEW Vclass app.

Do you think such a move will be plausible/

Of course, as said before, the virtual education and learning has already gained its roots, and therefore it is here to stay.

Apparently, most universities in Ghana have Incorporated the virtual mode of learning in their school curriculums.

Have you had any experience with virtual learning, if yes kindly indicate when and how

Yes, I have had an experience of virtual learning. This took place in 2020 when Covid-19 was active and schools were closed down by the government. My school created a learning website known as Moodle which hosted online teaching and learning.

Currently we have moved from using UEW Moodle to UEW Vclass which also comes with an app.

Per my experience, virtual learning has both positive and negative impact on students.

Merits

The spending of money on lecturers hardcopy books become less.

Students learn at their comfort zones without being stucked in lecture halls.

In the process, students become conscious of ICT, and its importance.

Demerits

Not all people have access to the lessons, due to network, data and financial constraints.

Others benefits whiles others don't, although they are willing to learn.

Some lecturers are too lazy to deliver timely lessons, whiles others too are computer illiterates, therefore leaving the educational success of their students at stake.

There are instances of website failure or down time, when lessons or exams are supposed to be ongoing.
Sometimes, some students gain access to the platform whiles others don't, due to technical issues or students forgetting their usernames and passwords for logins. This is very frustrating on the part of students, especially in times of writing online exams, when students who are supposed to undertake exams simultaneously at particular time end up writing in batches in a form of resit.

Most students cheat during online examinations, as they have their books and other sources at their possession that they can copy from, therefore making the purpose of the exams null.

Conclusion

This is so far my experience and suggestions on the impact virtual learning has or will have on the traditional teaching and learning that we are familiar with.

The world is evolving into an ICT world, and therefore we should embrace developement as such, although there are few challenges associated with them.

Thank you, here comes the end of my article.