The Need of Virtual Classroom to Replace Existing Classroom

The existing traditional classroom means the teacher guides the students all the time. Teacher gives instructions while students listen and follow the instructions. In traditional classroom, students are passive learners as they seldom express their thoughts and opinions as the teacher acts “sage on the stage” (Isa & Edita, 2013). Taken together, the interconnections, creative capabilities, and interactivity of Web 2.0 offer learners initiation into a Web based “participatory culture” that has “low barriers to artistic expression and civic engagement, strong support for creating and sharing one’s digital productions” (Jenkins et al., 2006; Greenhow et al., 2009). The virtual classroom provides the opportunity for the learners to be more engaging and collaborative than traditional classrooms.

Students are using particular technologies in their everyday lives they want to use them in their studies (Kennedy et al., 2008). As educators, we need to be thinking about how to teach “new” students of today by “learning new ways to do old stuff” (Prensky, 2001).

Digital Natives

The post-millennial "digital native," a term coined by U.S. author Marc Prensky in 2001 is emerging as the globe's dominant demographic, while the "digital immigrant," becomes a relic of a previous time.

The digital native-immigrant concept describes the generational switchover where people are defined by the technological culture which they're familiar with.

Prensky says that at no time in history has technology moved so fast. Today the latest high-tech gizmos can be passe even before hitting the shop floors.

Prensky defines digital natives as those born into "new culture" while the immigrants are old-world settlers

Jenkins, H., Clinton, K., Purushatma, R., Robison, A., & Weigel, M. (2006). Confronting the challenges of a participatory culture: Media education for the 21st century.[White Paper]. MacArthur Foundation in Greenhow, C., Robelia, B., & Hughes, J. E. (2009). Learning, teaching, and scholarship in a digital age Web 2.0 and classroom research: What path should we take now?. Educational researcher, 38(4), 246-259.

Kennedy, G. E., Judd, T. S., Churchward, A., Gray, K., & Krause, K. L. (2008). First year students' experiences with technology: Are they really digital natives?.Australasian journal of educational technology, 24(1).

Prensky, M. (2001). Digital natives, digital immigrants part 1. On the horizon,9(5), 1-6.

http://edition.cnn.com/2012/12/04/business/digital-native-prensky/