The 2013 ICEM Conference, “We Learning”, which was kindly hosted by our friends at the Nanyang Technological University in Singapore, was one of the most memorable events the ICEM community has had to good fortune to experience. It was indeed the high level of professionalism with which it was organized and the personal attention received by each of the ICEM delegates that made the event such a success. The ICEM community would to express its sincere thanks to the organisers for doing such fantastic job.
INVITED SPEAKERS:
Diana Laurillard: Designing the pedagogies for student support on the large scale
John G. Hedberg: Connecting to Learn
Grainne Conole: Harnessing the power of social and participatory media
James Dalziel: The Larnaca Declaration on Learning Design — Implications for the future
Carmel McNaught: Evaluating learning designs: A strategy to create engagement with teachers
James Ballard: Learner engagement: A metric for learning
Roger Cook: Designing for collaborative learning spaces: An academic staff development pilot program
Sándor Forgó: Media, New Media literacy, new methods in education
Chris Campbell ; Eva Dobozy: What is the relationship between Learning Design and TPACK?
Tan Siew Lan: Learning through augmented reality mobile game application
Lee Yik Sheng: Modelling learning from Ingress (Google’s augmented reality social game)
Csaba Komlo: Lajos Kis-Toth: Virtual and on-line classrooms of e-learning
Diana Laurillard: Designing the pedagogies for student support on the large scale
The field of Learning Design now has an interesting challenge. With the prominence of MOOCs and the related field of Learning Analytics, there is an expectation that learning technology will now be able to solve the problem of the worldwide demand for higher education (currently estimated as ~ 100 m per year). This is a problem that all of us in LD recognise and probably share as being the most important to be solved in the field of education. But our approach is different. How will the future development of Learning Design contribute to solving that problem? This paper will consider how the attributes of the field provide the means to do it. They were set out in the Larnaca Declaration: the focus on pedagogy in all its forms, the description of learning designs as computational objects, the sharing of ideas, the scope across all sectors and subject areas, the pedagogic categorisation of learning designs, the attention to what students do in order to learn, the mapping to implementations, the focus on effectiveness. To meet the demand for education we have to provide the level of nurturing and guidance every student needs if they are to attain their learning potential. Given the scale of the demand, this means moving from the current norm of a 1:25 staff student ratio to a much higher ratio, without loss to the student’s attainment. At present it is impossible to do this at the high ratio the level of demand requires, but technology is good at solving large-scale challenges. If there is a solution to be found it will come from the teaching community collaborating to design, test, improve and share the pedagogies that achieve high quality student support and attainment on the large scale. To do it, we need all the attributes of Learning Design. So we need a clear consensus of what they are in order to represent them in what we do.
John G. Hedberg: Connecting to Learn
“we-Learning” as the conference theme, is a social design challenge for those working with new learning environments. As we are presented with new tools, it is difficult to avoid the opportunities they support: we can share and collaborate without the monolithic requirements of a content/ learning management system, we can mutually support each other as learners in MOOCs through access to common resources and high quality presentations, and there are ways of co-authoring collaborative documents that keep the record of what is added and in what sequence. As we branch out from a single learner in an isolated world it becomes critical that we can track the learning path of each learner and with whom they interact to develop an understanding of the world. This presentation will explore new digitally supported learning and evaluation strategies with examples from school and higher education projects.
Grainne Conole: Harnessing the power of social and participatory media
Humans are fundamentally social beings; we learn and develop through dialogue and interaction with others. Today’s digital landscape offers a rich variety of ways in which we can communicate and collaborate with others. In other words, `we-learning’ the theme of this year’s ICEM conference is now a reality. The talk will consider how technologies can be used to promote different pedagogical approaches and will argue that the ways in which we interact with others is fundamentally changing. Social and participatory media mean that learners today are part of a distributed, global network of peers, engaging in collective intelligence, distributed cognition and trans-media navigation. Teachers need to adopt new approaches to design which harness the affordances of technologies, to create more engaging learning interventions that are pedagogical informed and that promote creativity and innovation through social learning.
James Dalziel: The Larnaca Declaration on Learning Design — Implications for the future
Summary form only given. The Larnaca Declaration on Learning Design (www.larnacadeclaration.org) provides a new summary of the theory, history and purpose of the field of Learning Design, based on discussions among experts over several years. It explores the foundational concept of a descriptive language for teaching and learning activities, and the related central concepts of guidance/advice and sharing. It places these ideas in a wider educational planning and delivery context covering pedagogical theories and methodologies, the role of institutions/educators/learners, the teaching lifecycle, the response of learners and related issues. In particular, it explores different types of visualisations of teaching and learning activities, and it also provides a timeline of developments in the field over the past decade. Drawing on the metaphor of music notation, Learning Design seeks a descriptive framework that can be applied to many different pedagogical approaches. However, Learning Design also seeks to describe effective teaching strategies so that these can be widely shared among educators in order to both improve educational quality and increase efficiency in planning. This presentation will provide an overview of the Larnaca Declaration, and discuss its implications for the future of Learning Design, educational technology and teaching.
Matt Bower: Looking glass into the future: Why Augmented reality will make the world wide web seem like a rounding error
Summary form only given. This presentation explores the implications of Augmented Reality for the future of education and society. The technology is introduced, conceptualised, and problematised. Discussion initially focuses on existing uses of Augmented Reality to exemplify what can be done, but also and importantly highlights what has not been done in the field of Education. Future scenarios are presented as a way of thinking through the implications of this transformative technology and preparing educators for the pedagogical revolution that is poised to take place.
Carmel McNaught: Evaluating learning designs: A strategy to create engagement with teachers
We know how to design meaningful learning experiences for our students; this knowledge is as old as formal education. For a very long time, we also have had an increasing range of excellent tools that are constantly improving. So why do our institutional web logs show remarkable little engagement with active and interactive learning designs? The answer to this question is complex, and this presentation will only focus on a partial solution. But all avenues to improve our teachers’ engagement with the opportunities for enhancing student learning should be pursued. The argument I will present is that, to date, we have not produced sufficient rigorous evaluation data that focuses on improved student learning. We do not have adequately persuasive evidence to offer our colleagues that will move the majority of teachers into seriously reflecting on the learning designs they use and how best to implement them. I will describe evaluation in all its facets and present a framework that links evaluation into the scholarship of teaching and learning. The need for a formal evaluation-research plan will be explored. There is a vast amount of data that can be used, and this needs to be logically and systematically linked to the evaluation-research questions that are of particular interest in any context. Reference will be made to the book: Phillips, R. A., McNaught, C., & Kennedy, G. E. (2011). Evaluating e-learning: Guiding research and practice. New York & London: Routledge. The example of a radical change in design of a very large first-year chemistry course will be used to illustrate how evidence for better student engagement, improved learning outcomes and even a reduced teacher workload can be obtained and used for dissemination to other teachers in the discipline area.
James Ballard: Learner engagement: A metric for learning
Summary form only given. Personalisation agendas and strategies emphasised that the learning process should begin with the learner and from this evolved the promotion of the learner voice – the learner’s ability to influence decisions affecting them. This has led to a varied implementation of personalised learning environments and provided a context for assessing their capabilities. Engagement in this context suggests that greater voice leads to increased participation and improved learning outcomes. Engagement can thus be presented as a view of the learner experience that can enrich the often reductionist language of performance, skills and competence. That is to say that the more one values the latter measures the more important it becomes to understand the former. Through exploration of the development of the personalised learning environment and appropriation of ideas from social media this talk will introduce engagement as a complex, multi-disciplinary metric for learning.
Deirdre E. van Jaarsveldt ; Charity N. Ndeya-Ndereya: Making accommodations for students with visual impairments to participate in the Nominal Group Technique
This research formed part of a larger study concerning an investigation of the e-learning needs of students with disabilities, which involved the use of the Nominal Group Technique (NGT). The NGT is a highly structured consensus method which involves four phases, as follows: Silent generation; round-robin of sharing; open discussion and anonymous voting. The NGT has proven to be a student-friendly data gathering technique and was employed in this study as it was important to provide an opportunity for the participants to discuss and prioritise their e-learning related needs, as well as their recommendations in this regard. The inclusion of students with visual impairments presented challenges, however, as these participants would not be able to read from a hard copy chart sheet or to respond in handwriting. The nominal group process therefore had to be adapted to make accommodations for this category of participants. The objectives in making accommodations for students with visual impairments were to enable them to participate in a particular study and to explore the possibility of conducting the NGT by the use of technology, thus increasing participation for students in distributed locations. The aim of this study required qualitative research and an explorative, descriptive and contextual design was followed. An action research approach, involving cycles of plan, act, observe and reflect was taken. These cycles related to making adaptations to the NGT as data gathering method, to include the specific group of participants. The anticipated use of the Blackboard® online chat tool was abandoned when a range of discoveries was made with regard to the participation of students with visual impairments in a chat. The problems encountered necessitated a review of plans, which initiated a second cycle of action research. The NGT was adapted, but the adaptations limited participation. Yet another cycle of action research is indicated to ensure the full participation of students with visual impairments in studies of this nature in future. Furthermore, recommendations were made for technological advancement for students with disabilities at the institution.
Brasilina Passarelli ; Adriana de Araújo Guzzi ; Alan César Belo Angeluci ; Antonio Hélio Junqueira: The impact of mobility in Brazilian infocenters: Acessasp case study
AcessaSP program is one of the biggest digital inclusion program in Latin America. It provides Internet access to poor population through infocenters located in the State of São Paulo, Brazil. AcessaSP began its operation in July 2000 and there are currently 737 infocenters fully implemented in 555 municipalities. AcessaSP digital inclusion program offers presential activities and a virtual environment dedicated to a community of more than 2.5 million registered users assisted by 1,116 monitors. Besides offering the opportunity to Internet access, the program also contribute to the social, cultural, economic and digital learning development of low income citizens in the State. Since 2003, a periodical survey called “PONLINE” is carried out in order to feed a database related to the users profile, needs, expectancies, habits and attitudes in relation to the program and the use of Internet. It is also used as a management tool for monitoring, improving and innovating the process. An important phenomenon has been observed in AcessaSP environment in the last few years: the emergence of mobility. For this study approach, mobility issue is considered from two factors: the growth and expansion of wireless connections and the broad access to mobile platforms, such as smartphones. These two characteristics are facilitating the emergence of new learning spaces and timing, which leads to the need of a wider and deeper understanding of this challenging scenario in terms of new uses and literacies. For these reasons, AcessaSP is investing in a strategy named “Acessa sem Fio” (Wireless Acessa), in which wireless connections are provided in cities with the program’s infocenters. Though, there is a lack of systematic information regarding the impact of this shift from physical to virtual concept. It is still poorly known how mobility can affect the program users’ appropriation and interaction with Internet. In this sense, this study aims to offer a framework to a qualitative researcah to better understand user’s habits and attitudes regarding wireless connection to Internet. Relevant outcomes are expected to be revealed in order to collaborate to a better understanding of this new scenario, mainly those ones related with the new role of infocenters in AcessaSP communities’ life. The framework can also provide requirements for designing digital inclusion public policies in order to popularize and democratize the World Wide Web with wireless connection. This can be the basis of further research on public policies for wireless digital inclusion.
Kumaran Rajaram: East versus west: The descendants of confucianism vs. evidence-based learning mainland Chinese learners in pursuit of western-based education in Singapore
Substantial numbers of Chinese mainland students are enrolled in overseas Western-based business courses but are dislocated from their home cultures. Business education curriculum and course designers need to understand how these students are best trained in western style education programs. Four-hundred students in Singaporean business training programs provided differential ratings of perceived learning effectiveness, plus dislocation measures of familiarity, comfort and ease of knowledge transfer for each of ten commonly used instructional strategies previously investigated by Rodrigues, four of which he termed “active” and six “passive”. In terms of perceived learning effectiveness alone, Mainland Chinese students reported clear differences. In order of decreasing effectiveness, they reported lectures by instructors, case-studies, group projects, videos, guest speakers, classroom presentations, individual research projects, classroom discussions, computerized learning and lastly, reading textbooks. The study presents strategies and practices for facilitating effective learning for mainland Chinese students in western based education – choice of instructional techniques and mixtures, attention to students’ cultural dislocation, comfort, familiarity, and ease of knowledge transfer.
David James Woo: A multi-tiered framework of technological pedagogical change in schools: Cases of developing ICT champion communities
This paper presents a multi-tiered framework for introducing and expanding a change in technology and pedagogy in schools. The framework entails working with different bodies of stakeholders in the grade-level, and also training or developing squads of ICT champions, experts-cum-enthusiasts. The framework can be scaled to include an increasing number of school stakeholder bodies, and to widen the innovation’s scope within a school. It addresses the need to reimagine student learning and teacher professional development as collaborative learning to build sustainable, accessible and scalable communities for technological pedagogical change. The framework is data-driven, supported by a three cases of ICT champions introducing a grade-level iMovie curriculum innovation in an international primary school in Singapore. In one case, a group of student ICT champions interacts with students and teachers. In another, a group of teacher ICT champions interacts with other teachers in the school. The third case describes how an ICT champion regularly trains all teachers at grade-level in Team Time meetings. Based on case data, school conditions for successful application of the framework, including the external and internal conditions for individual and corporate ICT champions are discussed.
Chris Boesch ; Sandra Boesch: Creating adaptive quests to support personalized learning experiences when learning software languages
Over the past three years the authors have been developing and refining an online practicing platform called SingPath, which enables users to practice writing code in various software languages. The most recent feature to be released is a Quest mode that encourages users by showing short video clips each time a user solves five problems. In addition, users are able to choose whether to play through these quests on easy, medium, or hard levels of difficulty. The ability for users to customize their game play enables them to modify the difficulty of the experience and ideally self-regulate how frustrating or boring they find the practicing experience. Additionally, a drag-n-drop mode has recently been added for users that would like to practice assembling solutions in a particular programming language before moving on to attempting to write code in that language. This new drag-n-drop mode enables quests to be played on a variety of tablets as well as traditional devices with keyboards.
Quek Chin Joo: Rasch analysis of students’ attitude towards Social Media and their intention to engage in cyberbullying behaviours
The Internet has become ubiquitous among the current generation of students. With the introduction of the Social Media, students now come to perceive that they own a piece “real estate” in cyberspace, in contrast to the earlier users of the Internet who were but anonymous, passive consumers of information. Unfortunately in parallel with the creativity and connectivity that students enjoy through Social Media, some are found to be engaging in risky behaviours such as cyberbullying. This has prompted researchers to try to understand the phenomenon. However thus far, the emphasis has been placed on profiling of the students while instances of cyberbullying continue to surface. There have been conjectures about what makes students behave this way; some have postulated that it is because of students’ perceived anonymity in cyberspace, others have posited that it is because of their perception that the Internet is not regulated. In this study, the authors explore these conjectures through the five dimensions of anonymity, lack of regulation, lack of physical cues, availability of audience, and freedom of expression in cyberspace. A total of 407 students in a local polytechnic were surveyed and their raw scores ran through Rasch analysis before further statistical analyses of correlation. The findings provided insights that are sometimes surprising and sometimes contradictory to the literature and our intuitions about how they would/should behave. It is apparent that students’ concepts of acceptable behaviours in cyberspace remain fuzzy and their de-linking of cyberspace from the real world has affected what they think can be done in cyberspace.
Jon-Chao Hong ; Ming-Yueh Hwang ; Shueh-Chen Huang ; Kai-Hsin Tai: Smartphones being implicitly used: How implicit knowledge affects the usage of a smartphone
Smartphones work well for smart people? Most Taiwanese were getting used to have menu to follow, if they buy a new device, that is, Taiwanese acculturate the difficulty to use a new technology, such as smartphone without menu introduction. Thus, the present study was focused on exploring how the implicit knowledge of users, affects the behavioral attitude when using smartphones. A total of 305 questionnaires were received, 293 of which were valid. A path analysis showed that out of a total of 9 hypotheses were supported, and all agreed with the related references and all had significant positive effects. The most important result was that implicit knowledge positively correlated with users’ perceptions of usefulness and ease of use, and thus affected both attitude and behavioral intentions.
Hanif Suhairi Abu Bakar: Investigating the emergence themes of cyberbullying phenomenon: A grounded theory approach
This paper focuses on the emergence factors and themes that surfaced as result of cyberbullying activities among adolescents in Malaysia that have never been reported prior to this one. The actual research attempted to fill the knowledge gap in cyberbullying phenomenon by focusing on factors that contribute to its activities among adolescents in Malaysia. In addition, the research seeks to understand the antecedents and the contexts and prevailing conditions that influence it, as well as the phenomenon, the coping strategies and the consequences resulting from the coping strategies. Using a grounded theory methodology, in-depth interviews were conducted on adolescents aged between 12 to 18 years from different schools in the state of Perlis. The data were analyzed using NVivo 10 by methodically coding and categorizing the data in open, axial and selective coding to arrive at a model development. A paradigm model will be obtained based on informants’ individual comments and experiences which uniquely contribute to the body of knowledge on cyberbullying phenomenon in Malaysia. The involved elements derived from the model are; the antecedents of cyberbullying; the phenomenon; the coping strategies by informants and the consequences resulting from these strategies. The significance of this study lies in its attempt to provide a working framework for reducing adolescents’ technology abuse that will eventually lead to cyberbullying and to find solutions for adolescents to tackle cyberbullying problems if it ever happened. This study is hoped to benefit all the parties: adolescents, parents, teachers, and other stakeholders to minimize adolescents’ cyberbullying phenomenon. At a time when most adolescents are exposed to cyber bullying around the world, this research is both timely and necessary.
Roger Cook: Designing for collaborative learning spaces: An academic staff development pilot program
To prepare for the delivery of new Bachelor of Science units in collaborative learning spaces, academic and professional staff at Queensland University of Technology piloted an academic development program over the period of a semester. The program was informed by Rogers’ theory of innovation and diffusion (2003) and structured according to Wilson’s framework for faculty development (2007). Through a series of workshops and group mentoring activities, the program modelled inquiry-based learning in a collaborative learning space, and the participants designed and practiced the delivery of teaching activities. This paper provides a preliminary evaluation of the effectiveness of the pilot based on survey responses from participants, notes from the development team who coordinated the program and audience feedback from the final showcase session. The design and structure of the program is discussed as well as possible future directions.
Sándor Forgó: Media, New Media literacy, new methods in education
The rapid proliferation of the concept of New Media and the attendant frequently controversial interpretations and research results motivate a scholarly overview of the possibilities of implementing the respective achievements in the teacher training process. Consequently, several issues have to be addressed: why is the respective term New Media written differently (it can appear either as a compound word, or as two separate words) in the Hungarian language? Why is the ICT term frequently substituting the professional vocabulary of instruction technology considered inappropriate? In light of the availability of such terms as Web 2.0 and community media why do we need the adjective: “New?” Hungarian research efforts into the theoretical and technological background of education have not yet provided a definite answer concerning the role of this fashionable, yet polysemic concept carrying several meanings. The present essay aims to outline an approach incorporating content arrangement considerations in addition to the prevalent technological perspective. While the New Media phenomenon has impacted several disciplinary fields and due to innovation efforts e-books or tablet machines enjoy a gradually increasing educational use, it has not yet fully been recognized in the daily routine of the teaching process. Despite the relatively limited presence of such equipment in schools the new generation of students demand the use of hi-tech electronic devices and new media tools they are accustomed to at home in the classroom as well. Although the fast proliferation of the concept and the relevant device system in educational institutions is far from certain, it is beyond doubt that in addition to digital (ICT) competences teachers will be required to have additional skills exceeding contemporary computer literacy requirements. New Media interpreted as technology mostly entails devices and tools facilitating digital, network-based connections promoting interactivity and creativity via tablet machines, smart phones, smart community TVs in addition to the Internet and the Web 2.0 applications. Yet, Manovich’s view1 emphasizing the new forms of content arrangement especially a data base oriented approach complementing and superseding the narrative-oriented perspective is rarely taken into consideration. While this theory regarding content as the compilation of unique components into a data base could trigger the broadening of scholarly perspectives, it is yet to be fully accepted by the professional community. Consequently, for Manovich New Media is not seen as new devices, or the world of networks and the related communities, but as a data base culture operating via Human Computer Interface. Thus the concept of New Media cannot solely be interpreted in a technological manner as it includes components related to content arrangement. Consequently, the primary focus is not on the methodological aspects of device application, as the inquiry is concerned with the logic behind digital data base oriented content arrangement complementing the traditional, linear narrative of the conventional instruction process. Thus New Media, as a sort of dramaturgy, can trigger the development of new narrative technologies significantly improving the methodological arsenal of teachers as the structure of a given lesson is elaborated according to a specific organisational principle determining the respective steps and phases of the class in other words, the dramaturgy of the lesson. Consequently, my presentation focuses on the application and methodology of the tangible and network-based aspects of New Media along with the exploration of novel forms of content arrangement.
Chris Campbell ; Eva Dobozy: What is the relationship between Learning Design and TPACK?
There is a great deal of literature currently available on eLearning and there are numerous available models on integrating technology into teaching practices, in the areas of mobile learning and blended learning. This paper will investigate two areas that are emerging as leaders in the field; namely Learning Design and Technological, Pedagogical and Content Knowledge, which is also referred to as TPACK. By exploring these two areas it is possible to interpret where the two areas intersect and to move the literature forward on both areas. Learning Design is a sub-field of eLearning, while TPACK has gained a great deal of currency after being developed by Misher and Koehler (2006) earlier this century. This paper demonstrates that by using these two frameworks together it allows for a stronger epistemological foundation and better design for teaching.
Hannah R Gerber ; Anthony Onwuegbuzie: “Why can’t we always learn like this?” Games-based learning and the English language arts classroom: Lessons learned and practical applications
This paper explores the impact of using commercial-off-the-shelf (COTS) videogames in a high school curriculum through examining the influence that using COTS videogames has on transforming students’ literacy learning in-school. However, it must be noted that transforming literacy in-school is about more than bridging in- and out-of-school literacies; it is about developing a deeper understanding of the meaning of literacy in today’s multimediated world so that we can better grasp how to harness new learning styles and new ways of making meaning. To understand how to capture these uses of in- and out-of-school practices, we conducted a mixed research study of a high school reading intervention class that incorporated a COTS videogames curriculum. Twenty-seven students participated and were enrolled in the class. Data were analyzed using constant comparison, classical content analysis, and qualitative comparative analysis. Findings indicate that the games-based curriculum allow students to see the validity of their out-of-school literacies within school curriculum, as evidenced by their desire to connect their reading and writing with gaming and an increased desire to read and to write more at the end of the class than at the beginning.
Tan Siew Lan: Learning through augmented reality mobile game application
In the recent years, mobile technology has been in a growing trend and industry started to look into how mobile applications can assist in promoting education and improves business. School of Interactive and Digital Media (SIDM), Nanyang Polytechnic, as a school decided to look into mobile game development three years ago and added Android and IOS development into the curriculum for the Diplomas. Students are tasked with Client-based Mobile applications for their Final Year Projects and most projects are in periods of 3-6 months duration. The school see potential on projects for edutainment while the technology of Augmented Reality (AR) became a research topic to enhance the user experiment on using the mobile application. The mobile application created is targeted at young users from ages 7-12 and aims to educate young kids and teenagers how to be responsible pet owners. Through interactive 3D animated characters and games, tips of pet care are presented to the users.
Lee Yik Sheng: Modelling learning from Ingress (Google’s augmented reality social game)
This is a concept paper looking into how Google’s worldwide augmented reality game called Ingress could be used to inform the development of learning from games. Ingress is Google’s attempt in creating a game based on augmented reality of actual physical locations where a story line is set to guide two different factions of agents to move around geographical locations with mobile devices to capture strategic places called portals which are based on actual artefacts. This paper describes how Ingress, through the use of mobile devices and augmented reality, incorporated within its gameplay the elements of MOOC, badges, crowd learning, seamless and geo-learning, and learning from gaming which are considered as new and emerging forms of pedagogies identified in Open University’s 2013 report on innovating pedagogy. Initial findings of an online survey on the motivation to play and continue playing the game will be presented. This paper will end with a discussion on the potential of using the Ingress model with its integrated forms of pedagogies, and the limitations and issues that might arise. The conclusion is that although the process to enhance learning experience through gamification is not without difficulties, there exists a vast potential of benefits which justifies continuous research and exploration in this area.
Csaba Komlo: Lajos Kis-Toth: Virtual and on-line classrooms of e-learning
As more and more sectors of life have become impacted by computers education institutions have followed this trend as well. In some cases the development of students’ informatics potential begins in kindergarten and the process lasts through elementary, secondary and higher education too. In the beginning pupils become familiar with the basic aspects of computer use, acquire such skills as file processing, the application of generally available administrative software and the use of the Internet. At a later stage of their studies they can focus on more special applications including computer graphics, video editing, sound processing, or programming. At first almost in all cases instruction takes place in the traditional classroom or in the computer laboratory, and only during the delivery of e-learning, or blended learning programs facilities called cyber space for lack of the better word are introduced. Consequently, a group of students participating in such programs is named virtual class, and the respective section of the cyber space bears the name of the virtual classroom. Through the years several types of virtual classrooms have developed and in our practice we defined three main types of them. The most frequently used on-line classroom denomination refers to user connection and interaction achieved via computerized networks-provided synchronized communication. Other important features include an attempt to model the traditional class room via the central role of the instructor and interaction options available to students. The second type of virtual classrooms focuses on content provision while placing a lesser emphasis on student interaction. In this case students can follow the instructor presentation or any other auxiliary material both in a synchronous and asynchronous manner. The third version of the virtual classroom uses the traditional classroom model while the use of the class management software produces the appearance and outline of the virtual classroom affording an identically prioritized role to the instructor to that of the real world. This facility and instructional arrangement is primarily characterized by synchronous communication and interaction. In our presentation we would like to clearly define the three types of virtual classrooms, examine their main features, and show successful application in education.