Supporting remote communities with a shared virtual classroom: a view of social contexts

Abstract The development of information and communication technologies has made it possible for schools to establish inter-institutional electronic networks to enhance the quality of education in small schools in sparsely populated countries like Finland. Along with this development, new kinds of virtual classrooms have emerged in symbiosis with conventional schools. A virtual classroom in a school context is a new, mostly uninvestigated, phenomenon. This article reports on the results of a Finnish project that linked two lower secondary classrooms to make one virtual classroom. The article reports on an exploratory case study of the virtual classroom and discusses justification of its establishment and practice, within the social contexts embedded in the project.