Generating virtual eye contacts through online synchronous communications in virtual classroom applications

Abstract

The Internet usage has been increasing among persons in the worldwide. This situation highlights that the number of potential distance learners has been increasing in the Internet society. Besides, the terms and concepts of the Internet environments become to be spread out in this society like virtual reality. It is also possible to explain the characters of the Internet clearly via generating relatively new terms or concepts. "Virtual eye contact" concept is one of these. In this article, this concept is considered with a specific application of synchronous internet-based e-learning environments which is virtual classroom platform application. Explanation, technological infrastructure and benefits of this concept and training of the trainers to use this nonverbal communication type more powerfully are explained and discussed.