I wrote earlier about a future globalization of the students’ union movement that would find its relevance in the age of fledgling web-based college classes. However, what I mentioned in that post was the idea for the creation of an “online campus” as one of the demands of a future web-based student’s union.

So…what is an online campus?

Is it in the current form of online classes run by teachers from afar without any further immersion than could be offered a web-based, primarily-text interface (like Blackboard)? Nah, campi in the real world are much more encompassing than just a mere collection of classrooms: you have student centers, dormitories, libraries, study halls, lunch rooms and cafes, computer rooms, fraternity/sorority buildings, sports facilities, art collection exhibits, chemistry and science labs, airfields….you name it.

So how would an online university bring a similar experience of immersion into its repertoire?

Well, I think the slight rise in popularity of web-based videos of teacher lectures and demonstrations is a good star, at least so that a student can say that he or she can actually pin a face on whoever is giving the assignments or lectures; both text and video comments can enhance the experience for the relationship between the teacher and the online class participants.

Of course, I’m not as sure about Second Life as a medium for online classes, although my own perception of the trend is based on my experience with it (which was weak). But I also think that, if virtual worlds are to become a medium for online classes, then they would have to include an integration with the media distribution methods – such as online video – that would allow the teacher to have greater lecturing or demonstration abilities than are currently available on the web.

Plus, the problem with the web (or graphics-based virtual worlds) as a medium for online classes is that walking in-and-out of the class is rather easy, with the students getting to the assignments at any time before their due date. The web as a classroom is a wall of text that doesn’t even replicate a real-world classroom or the intricacies in navigation and organization between the classrooms. There’s simply no distinction between the online classrooms or integration of the classrooms between each other.

Also, I would like to question my own biases and say that the wiki model for education that has been pushed by Wikiversity may actually cause a further unravelling of web-based education resources – “unravelling” as in “less structure, architecture or organization”; since it is based off of Wikipedia, it may only differ from Wikipedia or other wikis in the way that it functions (less focused on user editing of resources, among other features). Whether that is a good thing for education or no is up to debate: maybe a destructructuralization of educational administration is needed, or it may lead to a lack of accountability over teaching methods, or it may only be suitable for a certain number of disciplines or types of disciplines (maybe those that need demonstration and would thus benefit from web videos).

So I’m just unsure of what the online campus would look like.