Graduate Advertising course moves the classroom to the virtual world

The Advanced Account Planning class, under the direction of Dr. Neal Burns, is moving the learning environment from the traditional classroom to a virtual one. With the changing market, being able to interact with others online is becoming more realistic and advantageous. The students are starting to meet in the virtual world of Qwaq to work in groups, learn about assignments, and discuss important topics of the class.

Qwaq provides 3-D virtual collaboration where the online forums are virtual environments used to facilitate interactive online meetings, workflow, real-time document editing, and document sharing. One merit of this change to the virtual world leads to a possible invigoration to the educational process. This moves the most important teaching-learning tool away from textbooks toward a virtual version that provides excitement and interaction with others while learning. Multiple users can interact with the same document, which facilitates understanding by learning with others. With the popularity of Second Life and other online interactive sites, these students are getting experience while on the cusp of the interactive boom within the classroom

With the general move within education toward technology (i.e. email, posting of assignments, online library search databases, etc.), moving the classroom to the virtual world from the traditional classroom with textbooks and chalkboards is becoming a smaller leap. This virtual classroom is a supplement to the regular class meetings but is helpful in giving students experiences with the newest advances in technology and learning.