Virtual Education, Virtual Classroom, Online Education, Online Teaching

Online education: an urgent task

The development of New Information Technologies and Communication, and especially since the advent of the Internet have caused a revolution in open and distance education.

In the early 60's the Department of Defense United States created a research system called ARPAnet (Advanced Research Proyects Agency), consisting of a network of intercommunication and information. In 1970 he managed to link together four universities: Stanford, UCLA, UCSB, and University of Utah, establishing a network of education in 1985 was delivered to the National Science Foundation to be used by universities and research centers.

Subsequently, technological advances brought about by the computer and the Internet, resulted in an innovative and revolutionary style of education called Virtual Education, in which teacher-student relations are changing dramatically, the traditionally rigid space-time - hierarchy.

Thus, in the 90s, there arises an educational mode called Virtual Education, because it is a system that performs well at distance, but which has been differentiated from the previous method, to be realized completely through the computerized , among which the use of computers and the Internet, which have come to revolutionize the field of education at all levels.

Thus, digital networks have given rise to the emergence of a new dimension in distance education, which is now called the Virtual Education which, far from being synonymous with the first mode is supported as futuristic that will respond to the challenges that population growth and globalization present for all nations.

CONCEPT

The term "virtual" is being used widely around the world and was even taken as a synonym for Open and Distance Education, Knowledge Based on Knowledge Network and Digital among many other designations. Moreover, in some regions is used to refer to systems that combine TV broadcasting with interactive teleconferences that operate in real time.

Although universities currently handle distance and virtual terms in a similar way, the truth is that each one carries different characteristics, generally based on the percentage of interaction that takes place through communication networks.

Through the use of information technology and telecommunications, the relation teacher - student generated educational processes, now occurs in any place and at any time in a remote synchronous and asynchronous interaction that simplifies the problems of time and space affect individuals in large cities, thus opening opportunities for access to university education from a new educational model designed as a "virtual".

VIRTUAL ENVIRONMENT

According to the Royal Academy dictionary, the word "virtual" to mean "having the possibility of being, which is in power but not in reality."

"The word comes from Medieval Latin virtual virtualis, which in turn is derived from virtues: strength, power. In the scholastic philosophy, the virtual is that which exists potentially but not in deed."

The term is now handled in education, when the interaction of the educational process is conducted through electronic media. Educators inserts distance education began using the term to create the concept of Virtual University in the early nineties until today become a recognized meaning and increasingly widespread.

At university level the concept "virtual" has begun to use when referring to teleconferencing systems combined emissions, cable, closed circuit networks, satellite and Internet, because all these elements can interact without needing to travel remote regions or overlap in time and space, achieving an additional platform to acquire knowledge.

Computer-mediated interaction provides different spaces and times where these elements are mixed at speeds greater than the light travels through cyberspace, thus becoming one of the properties capital of virtualization. In dynamic virtual no territoriality, since any individual can access a private or public space and addressed equally to a person or large masses of people in one second.

That is why hierarchies are broken in this space, producing an interaction of equals between teacher and student. The interactivity that occurs in a course via the Internet, enables the development of communication and exchange processes between the subjects breaking barriers of time and space, therefore, the media is playing a role socialization.

As a result of technological advances, there is a huge flow of information generated each day and immediately flows through the global communication networks, as a result, the practical application that can be given to knowledge reduces the life of this to such an extent that ever has a lower renewal cycle. To date, estimated at three years in the field of computer science and eight years in other areas. Since then, the information and knowledge moving through cyberspace, we must address the network and capture them fresh information to update knowledge in all areas, becoming therefore necessary that higher education institutions adopt virtual systems as mode of teaching in order to stay ahead and cope with the global market economies.

Virtual reality is irrefutable proof of this, going beyond what could have imagined the human mind until very recently, since over the Internet is possible that the students marched through the halls of a museum, a university campus and you can even see the person with whom communication is being exchanged, which gets to be in most cases equally or more significant than in a classroom course for the fact concentrate all your senses at the computer screen.

The work by the virtual system has considerable potential in the field of education, the characteristics presented facilitate and abundant access to knowledge, so that the institutions of Higher education can not circumvent the implementation of virtual campuses in each of their universities.

A LAN (with small "i") is a set of interconnected networks, Internet (capitalized) is the telecommunications network was born in 1969 in the U.S. to which are connected millions of people, organizations and businesses around the world, its rapid development is having major social, economic and cultural rights, thus becoming one of the most influential of the "Information Society" and the "Information Highway" par excellence.

Internet is now the largest global communications network, being formed by a network of computers connected in turn to thousands of computers worldwide, so that the user has access to information that is generated daily from around the world in Within seconds, which is why the "information highway" is fast becoming an indispensable tool for education in the world.

World statistics on the Internet, reported in July 2002 the following: 590,103,094 users, of a world population of 6,267,262,700 people on the planet.