Virtual learning environments: the alternative to the box under the bed

Abstract

VIRTUAL LEARNING Environments (VLEs) describe those environments that use digital and electronic technology in order to facilitate learning and teaching. They can include not only learning resources on CD or on the web, or both, but more traditional, paper-based resources as well. In this article, we shall present the results of a research project that set out to discover how students used a VLE structured around video lectures. As Baecker has pointed out, webcast video has generally be seen as a fairly uninteresting element of a learning environment, and "typically viewed as an ephemeral one-way broadcast medium". We are interested in using video lectures as part of an integrated study tool, where images and text are used to provide what we hope is a flexible and powerful environment for study. Our environment may at first seem similar to those such as Iolis or web-enabled CALI programs; but there are significant differences in emphases, structure and content. Our article presents some findings from a long-term research project based on the environment, which is still ongoing, over the course of an academic year and beyond into traineeship. We shall also describe in brief how we developed it, and how it is changing the learning landscape within the postgraduate professional courses in the Glasgow Graduate School of Law.