The "Private" Virtual Classroom

Many students have commented to me that they are willing to attend a Virtual Class, but they don't have a location where they can attend and not be interrupted for the duration of the class. Often the office is a "cubicle farm" with all sorts of noises, distractions, and bosses! While attending from home usually means stepping over children and interfering with family activities.

So, what can you do if your Virtual Classroom is a virtual mess?

We faced this problem the other day. Numerous Fortune 500 companies have incorporated TrainingCity classes into their career development programs. A student in Boston needed to attend a TrainingCity class as part of her corporate professional development program, but the class was only being offered in San Diego. She needed to complete the class as soon as possible so I suggested she consider being a Virtual Student.

That's when we realized there was a problem!

She had no where to go to attend the Virtual class. Her desk was in the middle of a busy office, there was no way she could occupy the group's only conference room for several hours each day of the class, and her home was overflowing with three little bundles of joy!

Faced with this dilemma, I suggested she come to a rented temporary office in downtown Boston where TrainingCity maintains a contracted day office rental option. For a modest daily fee we were able to provide her with a Class "A" office, complete with Internet access, teleconference, and a TrainingCity supplied laptop configured to participate in the Virtual Class presentation and connect via our TrainingCity VPN directly to a lab computer in our San Diego lab. As a result she could attend the Virtual class in comfort and complete the same labs as the other students, without interruptions!

The key to this success was the recognition that Virtual Classroom training is more "Instructor Led" than "elearning".

When we think elearning we usually think cheap, static, and rigid. Instructor led training on the other hand is built on the premise of flexibility and real time interactions between the instructor and the student. When we set out to build Virtual Classrooms, the focus must be on the real human welfare of the students and the instructor. We must always consider technology not only in terms of how it allows for virtual collaboration, but in terms of how a "complete" virtual classroom experience enables a comfortable and effective learning environment.