The virtual classroom: at the cutting edge of higher education

At the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (UIUC), we are using networked computers to implement innovative teaching and learning environments. This new approach to education has been termed "Asynchronous Learning Networks" (ALN). With support from the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation and the UIUC campus administration, we established the Sloan Center for Asynchronous Learning Environments (SCALE) in March 1995. During the 1995-96 academic year, SCALE faculty taught more than seventy five courses that were restructured to use networked computers to provide access to learning materials and to subject-matter experts; in the Spring 1996 semester, more than 4000 students were enrolled in SCALE courses at UIUC. The ALN environment can be used to implement a "virtual" classroom, which has many of the same features of a physical classroom: access to lecture materials and discussions and the ability to ask and answer questions, to turn-in homework, and to take quizzes. In the implementation of ALN at UIUC, the virtual classroom is a supplement to the physical classroom; while it may change the interactions in the actual classroom, it does not replace the physical classroom.