Digital Classrooms Facilitating Vocational Workplace Learning In Industry

Today video communication technology offers real time learning experiences although teachers and students work and collaborate together without being physically at the same geographical location. This paper outlines and discusses infrastructure dependent factors that affect just-in-time transfer of new skills, competence and know-how to the workplace in Small and Medium Sized Enterprises (SME), by using state of the art video technologies within a distance learning environment. The experiences reported have been obtained during a period of 3-4 years and participation in several international R&D projects targeting in-company industrial training. This distance learning environment uses a blend of technologies mixing for instance face-to-face training, virtual learning through LMS, video streaming and inclusion of state of the art videoconferencing solutions. The design of the digital classrooms adapted for video communication is important. Such rooms offer teachers and instructors dedicated facilities for effective use of videoconferencing as a convenient synchronous communication channel towards remote groups of distributed students.