Virtual InteractiveClassroom

Summary

The virtual interactive classroom introduces a compelling distance-learningexperience by combining video with mobile phone-based messaging.During initialpilot courses delivered through the Bangladesh Open University,this new approachto learning has shown increased student retention and improved performance.Relative to traditional distance learning courses, students feel more engaged inthese interactive classes where they receive immediate feedback and can connectvia their mobile phones to other students and to the teacher.This approach alsoreduces the cost of providing quality education in under-served regions and enablesgood instructors to serve more students while maintaining a high standard of quality.The nonprofit UnaMesa Association, in conjunction with the Bangladeshi Soft-ED -the inventors of the a virtual interactive classroom methodology - proposeestablishing a virtual interactive classroom web service to support teachers andinstitutions who want to offer virtual interactive classes.We believe that suchservices could significantly improve the accessibility of quality education in under-

served regionsand that the demand for such services could be very strong.Severaleducational organizations have already expressed interest in using these tools.Institutions in Ghana, Mongolia, and South Africa are currently considering plans tooffer such services to their students.To develop and offer the virtual interactive classroom service on a global basis, theUnaMesa Association and Soft-Ed are seeking partnerships with organizationswilling to invest in creating new educational opportunities. We plan to funddevelopment of this project through a combination of grants, investments, andcustomer guarantees.Please direct all partnership inquiries to Greg Wolff (GregWolff@unamesa.org),President of the UnaMesa Association.

Introduction

Virtual Interactive Classroom (VIC) is an innovative solution to the problem of implementing a quality distance education program in countries such as Bangladesh,where contemporary methods, such as the use of internet and computing resources,are both expensive and impractical. VIC makes use of mobile phones and ShortingMessage Service (SMS) messages to add a layer of interactivity to educationalvideos. This allows distance education students to interact with the lecturer much asif they were present in the classroom or using a computer.While access to the internet is both limited and prohibitively expensive for students incountries such as Bangladesh, a recent [1] demographic study at a particular villagein Bangladesh showed that less than 1% of households own a computer while 27%own a TV and 47% own a mobile phone as shown below:

Fig.1. Household possessions (Fig.4.2)

[1]

Therefore, the use of mobile phones and SMS messaging allows for interactivedistance education to be provided to students in demographic regions where the useof internet resources and video conferencing is not possible. The addition of suchinteractivity to video lessons has shown some success [2, 3, 4, 5] and is beingpiloted by Bangladesh Open University in one of its English language courses [3, 5].Furthermore, institutions in Ghana, South Africa and Mongolia have expressed aninterest in implementing this technique.However, in order to scale the technique and allow administrators and lecturers indeveloping countries to easily include VIC interactivity in their educational videolessons, there is a need to create a web based service that would provide supportand infrastructure. As administrators of distance education courses are generallyurban based, they are likely to have access to the internet in order to set up a VICcourse that can subsequently be delivered in rural settings.

VIC Methodology in More Detail

The value of the interactivity provided by VIC can be appreciated in light of a PhDthesis that studied the nature of drop outs from courses of Bangladesh's maindistance education provider, Bangladesh Open University (BOU). BOU traditionallyuses pre-recorded video lessons as the medium of instruction and does not offer anymeans of interaction for the students. Out of the 700,000 students registered eachyear, only a total of about 35,000 sit exams. The conclusion drawn was that lack of