The Virtual Learning Environment

The titles of ‘learning management system’ and ‘course management system’ can both be defined as a virtual learning environment (VLE). In an educational setting, a VLE is a software system designed to support education by providing a platform for instruction and learning to occur. VLE’s have become an important component of the higher education system.

A good VLE should provide an interface that allows instructors and students to effectively manage and participate in the course. Some of the features it should provide include the ability to publish a course syllabus and other general course information, an announcement board, the ability for students to register and pay for courses, access to course materials, links to outside supporting materials, assessment tools, methods of communication including email, chat rooms, message boards, and threaded discussions, universal availability, expandability, compatibility with various operating systems and software, and security. A VLE that provides these features will allow both instructors and students to get the most out of their online learning experience.

Although there are some similarities, most of the tools we have learned to use in this course are generally not included as features of a VLE. However, neither were the vast majority of the tools we used in the class collectively available from any single source. This course began with a VLE (Blackboard), but was expanded by incorporating web-based tools from numerous providers. A VLE should provide the foundation for successful online learning to occur. From there, it is up to the instructor to enhance the students’ learning experience by incorporating the types of tools we used in this course.

One important concept to be taken from this class is that learning does not necessarily need to stay within the confines of a traditional, commercially available VLE. As we have seen this semester, a wiki and a blog can easily serve as the basis of a VLE. The versatility of these two tools combined has allowed us to integrate our wiki and blog pages with aggregators, social bookmarking, web conferencing, audio podcasting, photo and video sharing, polls and surveys, map building, and web office applications. An ambitious instructor can easily enhance their online classroom by looking further than their institutions’ VLE and incorporating these web-based tools.

Although I took time to look at all of the VLE providers listed on our assignment page for this week, I have experience with both Blackboard and Angel. I find both to offer more than adequate features to appropriately facilitate successful online learning. In fact, there are features within both systems that I have not used in any class. I personally prefer the appearance, or interface, of Angel, but both are quality systems. Furthermore, both systems are easy to navigate. With basic computer knowledge, new students should easily adapt to online learning if provided with Blackboard or Angel.