It seems these days that everything can be done virtually. Learning, talking with family, google maps, you can tour homes that you want to buy, you can visit places on the internet, and people even have virtual sex these days. I do not necessarily think that it is a bad thing that this is all happening, but people need to realize that humans need actual human to human interactions, not just with a screen.
Going to a Virtual Office in a Second Life is an articale about how people are now starting to work from home and just enter the office virtually. They meet online in virtual meeting spaces and some programs even allow you to make yourself as a virtual avatar and actually show up virtually to these meetings. You can even share the files that you have been working on with programs like "Dropbox" and "Google Docs." My offices becomes more and more virtual all the time. I had meetings today with people from Austin, TX over the large computer screen in the middle of the conference room.
In the article Advantages and Disadvantages of the Virtual Classroom and the Role of the Teacher, it is about how more and more classes are becoming online. Sometime there are actual class meetings online, not just work and papers, like ours. In most cases, these classes become half in the class room and half online, like the hybrid classes that are offered (or they become) at Brooklyn College! It is more challenging for the student to learn, studies show. Teachers are more able in the classroom and they create relationships with their students that allow for farther learning!
Sometimes it is convenient to take hybrid classes, because we can have flexible time. However, it also means we have more writing than regular classes.
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