The M-E Virtual Classroom lets teachers create a convenient environment for teachers and students to work online. First of all, have a look at this video tutorial:

Now we will see in more detail what M-E VC is, and how to set up one for yourself.

go straight to instructions  (how)

go straight to description  (what)

The M-E Virtual Classroom (VC) allows a teacher to create groups and fill them with students by providing them with a key. That key will be unique to every teacher. Students simply have to insert that key into their VC, then choose a group, and voilá, they are in! These are the things that teachers can do through their VC:

1- Set assignments
2- Have a class chat
3- Monitor students' work
4- Provide links for students
5- Share folders with any kind of files
6- Contact students through internal mail
7- Send mail alerts to student's personal mail account
8- Have noticeboard to leave message to all students
9- Upload videos and create activities and excercises for students

But first, let's see the instructions to create a VC for your students.

INSTRUCTIONS

To create a Virtual Classroom you must be a registered user. Go to your user menu, click on "Edit my Information" and you'll see the Virtual Classroom box. If you are not already there you can also click here if you are a teacher and you are already logged in.

KEY To create a VC first you need to choose a unique key to identify it. Write your key in the Virtual Classroom box and then press the button "Validate Key" at the bottom of the VC box. If the key is already in use, a message will warn you and the key will be rejected. If the key is available then it will be accepted and now you can create your groups.

WRITE YOUR GROUPS Here you will write the list of your groups. Separate them with a semicolon ( ; ) and no blank spaces, for example you can write: 1A;2A;4C (that will represent the groups: 1A, 2A and 4C). And now click on the button "Create Groups" to integrate those groups into your VC. The list of groups created will now appear in the box called "Groups created", and when your students join your VC you will also see how many students are there in each group.

Now you have your Virtual Classroom created and set up, but you want to fill it in with some students. Simply give your key to your students so they can join. They will have to register on Multimedia-English and then go to "edit their personal information". In the same place that you have your VC box they will also have their VC box. All they need to do is write your key on the Key box, validate it (like you did) and then choose a group (they will see a list of the groups you have created). That's it for them, now they're in your VC and you can work with them online.

SHARED FOLDERs In this box you can insert the url for your shared folder. Your students will see this link to open the shared folder and they will be able to see all the documents and files of any kind that you put for them inside that shared folder. You can set up your shared folder so that your students can only see (and download) your files, or you can also let them edit or upload their own files into that shared folder or subfolders. For more instructions about how to create a shared folder click here.

LINK And there is yet another box for a link. Here you can paste a link and your students will be able to open that link from their VC box. This link will let you share a page or website with your students. This can be very useful if you have a Facebook page or group or a teacher's blog, etc. and you want to integrate it with your VC, so everything is accessible for your students from just one place. You can also use it to recommend a website to your students or set an internet page for them to work.

Now that you have inserted one or both links, you have to press the button "Validate Links" so they will become part of your VC and be accessible for your students. Once the clicks are validated you can click on them to check that they work correctly and open the right page. If there is a mistake, delete the links pressing the X button and insert a url again.

TO ELIMINATE A VC

If you want to delete your VC simply delete your key by pressing the red X button. If you confirm deletion, the VC will disappear for you and for all your students.

WHAT IS A M-E VIRTUAL CLASSROOM

These are the things you can do with your VC:

1- SET ASSIGNMENTS

Teachers can handpick the videos and activities they want their students to work with. When a teacher with a VC is looged in, a special icon will appear on the right hand-side corner of all video pages; by clicking there the video will be added to their students homework list. The same is true for the activities. Since students can be separated in different groups, when picking a video or activity for the list of assignments teachers can choose the group they wants to send it to, or choose all groups to send it to all their students at the same time.

2- HAVE A CLASS CHAT

There will be a chat room for every group of yours where students can chat. You can also watch and participate in every one of those chats. This will let students communicate with all the class at the same time, share things and practise the language..

3- MONITOR YOUR STUDENTS' WORK

All the activity deployed by students is registered in their user's log. Teachers have access to all their students' logs and so can check the progress of their work. They can control what videos students' are working with, how long they have worked with them, what activities and exercises they have made and what results they got in their activities. Teachers also have a list with the total time their students have spent working on the website. This list can be filtered by any time range and also printed, so if a teacher chooses to, he or she can give marks for their students' work at home.

4- PROVIDE A LINK

Many teachers have a blog or a group on Facebook to work with their students. M-E's VC allows teachers to integrate that page into this VC so it is just one click away and students can easily navigate from M-E to the other page. If the teacher does not have another personal page he or she would like to use with their students, they can still use this link to give students access to a recommended site of their choice.

5- SHARE FOLDERS

Having a shared folder is really convenient for teachers since they can easily send all sorts of files to their students: docs, pps, mp3, etc. M-E does not provide a hosting space of its own, but offers the possibility of creating a shared folder with some of the leading providers of this service and then paste the link into your VC so students can access your shared folder without having to come and go. You can choose any provider you want (if you don't have any already) but we recommend these, which are probably the best free providers (they all use click-and-drop technology to make sharing easy as pie):

DropBox, the original (https://www.dropbox.com/). Just register on that website for free, download the programme and install it into your computer. You will get a brief set of instructions on usage, but it's really simple to use and totally intuitive. They offer 2 GB of storage free. If you need more you can try Google Drive:

Google Drive ( https://drive.google.com/ ): It stores up to 5 Gb and accepts any file size up to 1 Gb. If you install the free software on your computer you can create folders and subfolders and easily share them with your students just by dropping files onto the folders. You can get a link for the shared folder and put it in your VC. Your students will see the link to your folder in their own VC and they will be able to access all your shared files by clicking on the link there. For instructions on how to create a shared folder with Google click here.

Other similar services: Copy, the most simple (https://www.copy.com/), SkyDrive, Microsoft's (http://skydrive.live.com/) or also a new one, very simple and now getting fashionable: Cubby (https://www.cubby.com/).

6- INTERNAL MAIL

The VC includes an internal mail service. Teachers can send mails to all their students or just to one group in particular, or just to one student. Students can reply to their teacher's mails and also send mails to other class-mates. But the beauty of this service is that no one needs to give their private e-mail address, all the mailing goes from one user account to another and no address is needed, so nobody must worry about others knowing their e-mail.

7- SEND MAIL ALERTS

If teachers need to communicate something urgently (for example to say they are ill and will not go to class the following day), they can send an alert to a group or to all students. This alert will be sent straight to the students' personal e-mail account (gmail, hotmail, yahoo, etc.), but it will be sent via Multimedia-English, so teachers do not need to know the real e-mail from their students, and students will not be able to see their teacher's mail address or reply to this message. This way the student's and the teacher's privacy is not broken in any way, while allowing contact when needed.

8- NOTICEBOARD

Teachers and students who are into a VC have a noticeboard on their user's menu. Anything teachers write there will be instantly visible to all their students the moment they enter their personal menu.

9- CREATE VIDEOS AND ACTIVITIES

You do not need to be in a VC to create videos and activities, but if you have a VC you can create video pages uploading a specific video you want to work with, and then add it to your students' assignment list, so they can work with it. You can also create activities for your students and share with them in the same way. This way you do not have to stick to what M-E offers, but you can also create your own material for your students and also benefit the rest of users the same as you can benefit from other teachers' work on this site too.