What is Virtual Learning Environment (VLE)? - Uses and Benefits of VLE

Virtual Learning Environment (VLE) is an internet-based platform that provides students and teachers with digital solutions that enhance the learning experience.

What is a Virtual Learning Environment (VLE)? - Uses and Benefits of VLE in the Teaching/Learning Process

Virtual Learning Environment (VLE)

A virtual learning environment (VLE) is a web-based platform used for educational purposes.

The VLE is a technical system that has been developed to manage online educational courses, whether they are free-online courses or regular education.

Online teaching resources are a trend to use modern technologies and techniques to provide new outlets and create a new learning environment through the Internet. 

The participant feels in this environment that he is inside an integrated educational environment that includes study materials, specialists, discussions, and interactions that do not require being on one land or one place.

Virtual Learning Environment Features

The virtual environment provides a vivid picture of shapes and scenes mixed with sound and movement, forming a system for the required environment, as it enables us to participate in a variety of visual and audio-sensory interactions in addition to kinesthetic interactions.

The ability to display things in three dimensions helps the user to get a close acquaintance with the relationship that binds these objects and their parts with each other, in addition to the process of their interaction.

It is easy for you to envision a factory and build its virtual environment to look at it from the outside and enter it from the angle that you want to get to know the normal situation of this factory and to modify and add to what you aspire to, and you may run it to see how the production process will take place. You can do all of this before placing a single stone in the foundation of this plant.

It is also possible to explore an environment in the same way as the previous one that is difficult for a person to enter in its natural form and conduct his experiments on it to improve his conditions to face such environments in their natural state.

The 10 must-have features in a virtual learning environment may include:

1. Access to coursework from anywhere at any time

2. Combination of structure and freedom

3. Testing engine

4. Flexible user organization

5. Multimedia lessons

6. Sharpened digital skills

7. Variable questions

8. Adaptable learning curve

9. Content management system

10. Customizable grading system 

What are the Uses of Virtual Learning Environment (VLE) in Teaching and Learning?

A well-maintained VLE should enable students of all learning styles to receive the best possible education. It may help teachers plan lessons, manage administrative work, track students' activity, performance, and engagement levels, as well as provide additional materials and support for those who need that.

Studies have shown that the opportunity provided by this environment is great for students to enable them to coexist in their virtual environment and benefit as much as possible from the Total Physical Response Method (TPR) in education, which depends mainly on the principle of listening and observing before practice.

The VLE can create an interactive educational atmosphere that attracts the student and even immerses him in this atmosphere to deal with the things in it in a natural way. This process will be facilitated by providing the student with audio or animated instructions that facilitate his involvement in this environment.

If VLE is prepared in an appropriate way and the available capabilities are exploited in a proper manner and thus built in the required manner, the student will get a great educational opportunity that will enhance and refine his exploration capabilities, so he builds his concepts and procedures that help him learn and develop the required skills.

Here is a brief overview of some of what the virtual learning environment can offer to teachers and students:

First: If we look at the reality of education today, especially in India, we find that the student depends mainly on acquiring most of his knowledge theoretically and has little access to practice and experiment with this knowledge on the ground. This is due to several reasons, including the lack of suitable laboratory equipment in his educational institution, or the risks that may result in conducting some experiments, and the high cost of their materials.

When the student finishes his school stage, he finds a big gap between what he learned in theory and what is in reality. This is an issue that many specialists have been trying to find ways out of for a long time.

A well-built and scientifically constructed virtual learning environment can link skills acquisition in the classroom with real-life outside of school. 

VLE can help:

• Train students to use complex and sensitive equipment, such as those found in airport control towers, without the risk of giving wrong instructions that may lead to a disaster.

• Train the student to face potential dangers and prepare him to do good in such circumstances and how to act with them, as this is the case when earthquakes and volcanoes occur.

• Train the student to achieve skills that cannot be practiced on the ground or are difficult to provide the requisites to practice such as a dangerous surgical procedure that does not tolerate the experience.

• Provide the possibility of exposing the student to many possibilities while living in a certain environment in order to make the appropriate reaction to each possibility that he is exposed to as preparing a chemical compound.

• Deepen the values ​​and concepts related to the student’s culture and beliefs that are difficult to root in this student through traditional methods; telling stories and narratives, such as experiencing events that occurred in the past that highlight the values ​​and morals that a person should have.

Second: The virtual learning environment can present to the student a virtual library similar to the real library, including book indexes and classifications.

The student can browse the shelves of this library and select the desired topic to be reached.

The capabilities of this library do not stop to this limit, but there will be librarians at the student’s service ready to respond to any inquiries or clarification that he may need, just as the real librarians do.

This library has many features that distinguish it from the real library, and among these features:

• All the library's contents are always available. 
• VLE and digital libraries enable the student to access the required book in several ways, and this saves effort not on the student alone, but on others.
• The student can enter it in a way that suits him.

Third: Modern technology possesses capabilities that make the creation of a virtual classroom not impossible, as its components include live radio, interactive video, e-mail in addition to the global network, thus giving the student the opportunity to learn wherever he wants and whenever he wants.

Many educational institutions, especially those that adopt the idea of ​​distance education, use such capabilities.

Among the advantages of the virtual learning environment are the following:

• The student can access a huge amount of resources in different parts of the world through the global network.
• The student can communicate through e-mail to whomever he wants (colleagues, teachers, supervisors) easily and quickly.
• The student can have a face-to-face conversation with his teacher through interactive video.
• The teachers can plan lessons, manage administrative work, track students' activity, performance, and level of engagement.

In addition, the opportunity for education will be available to greater numbers, especially as tuition fees are low. This possibility provides an opportunity for people with limited income to enroll in university and achieve their ambitions.