There are so many creative and innovative ways to use Elluminate vRoom that we've captured some
of the best to motivate and inspire you. When it comes to power of vRoom, you're only limited by
your imagination! Send your story to us at stories@elluminate.com.
Learning Academy Worldwide Fosters Dialogue and Understanding with Elluminate vRoom™
By Theo van Rensburg Lindzter, Founder
Founded in 2000, Learning Academy Worldwide is a Swedish-based learning organization with offices in Washington, DC and Ennerdale, South Africa. Our objective is to field test the usefulness of literature-based lessons for K-12 classroom settings by engaging students in Socratic seminars on ideas that emerge from Swedish and South African literature.
Ultimately, we want to enable teachers in both countries to use curricula that we write as a result of these field-tested lessons. Elluminate vRoom™ is a vital part in achieving that goal.
vRoom enables students to demonstrate their skills in five major areas: critical reading, listening, reasoning, speaking, and writing. Needless to say, but certainly mentionable, vRoom extends the classroom to, in our case, three countries, effectively showing that the paradigm of our learning approach is transferrable.
This paradigm, known as Paideia, which is a Greek word meaning the upbringing of a child, insists on the need for the student to engage in a dialogue of quality where serious interaction around the great ideas that emerge from reading great texts is expected. The aim is to improve understanding, not just improve knowledge. It is this particular part that I find vRoom to contribute so admirably to. While I've always looked at web-based platforms as reaching the "what-do-you-know" goals of study, vRoom enables us to also achieve the "what-do-you-understand" goals.
For example, our students, ages 14-18, find that the whiteboard enhances their ability to express their thoughts using images, drawings, and symbols. It also improves the quality of their writing as they see the need to be clear in order that they can be understood. Because we can save our whiteboards as PDFs, you can very quickly retrieve information and also see how you have improved.
I don't really know how we would have managed to foster genuine dialogue involving students in two countries moderated from a third if we did not have Elluminate. It’s the perfect platform to honor the variety of learning styles our students have. It seems as if our learners have little difficulty in mastering the know-how in vRoom, and they have no lack of motivation to participate and contribute in the sessions.
In addition, we have recently started conducting online workshops with teachers in South Africa and find that Elluminate serves us well in achieving the learning goals we have. The Elluminate whiteboard is projected onto a large screen at the training center in Johannesburg, adequately accommodating the different learning styles of the teachers as well, who are also impressed with the technology.
