Development of a plugin for moodle: a virtual classroom
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Date
2015
Authors
Pratheepan, J.
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
University of Peradeniya
Abstract
Nowadays conducting traditional classes is quiet expensive and has some limitation due to the number of students in a class and geographical distribution of students etc. Further there are lot of disable students in our country who are unable to present traditional classes physically. Therefore, instead of restrictig to the traditional classroom teaching moving towards some other alternative teaching methods such as Web Based Teaching (WBT) is compulsory today. A Virtual Classroom is an online classroom that allows participants to communicate, view presentations, interact with learning resources and work in groups.
Students, teachers and parents are feeling that there are some gaps between real classroom teaching and the current Web Based Teaching. The objective of this research project is to identify the drawbacks in Web Based Teaching comparing with traditional classroom teaching, and then suggests some solutions for each and every problem identified. According to the solutions, a Virtual Classroom System is developed. Although some virtual classroom systems have already been developed we have concentrated mainly on our local needs and mentality.
Moodle, a well-known Learning Management System (LMS), is playing a vital role in many of the academic institutions nowadays. However, it has some weaknesses particularly in interactive teaching facilities. The virtual class room is developed as a plugin for the existing LMS Moodle because Moodle already has a lot of teaching and learning facilities. Our virtual classroom is intended to add some more values to the Moodle.
The develped plugin was tested for its functionality and reliability. Test results indicated that it successfully works with Moodle without affecting the functionality of Moodle, Additionally it functions efficiently and reliably. However there are some areas to be improved. Particularly the communication speed has to be improved for better and smooth functionality of our plugin. This is actually out of our control.
Description
Keywords
Classroom , Teaching , Web based teaching , Virtual classroom , Moodle , Learning management system