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Violins: Local Meanings, Globalized Sounds (Routledge Series for Creative Teaching and Learning in Anthropology)
by Pamela A. MoroViolins: Local Meanings, Globalized Sounds examines the violin as an object of meaning in a variety of cultural and historical contexts, and as a vehicle for introducing anthropological issues. Each chapter highlights concepts as taught in lower-level anthropology courses, and includes teaching and learning tools. Chapters range from a memoir-like social biography of a single instrument to explorations of violins in relation to technology, labor, the environment, migration, globalization, childhood, cultural understandings of talent and virtuosity, and prestige.
Viral Justice: How We Grow the World We Want
by Ruha BenjaminLong before the pandemic, Ruha Benjamin was doing groundbreaking research on race, technology, and justice, focusing on big, structural changes. But the twin plagues of COVID-19 and anti-Black police violence inspired her to rethink the importance of small, individual actions. Part memoir, part manifesto, Viral Justice is a sweeping and deeply personal exploration of how we can transform society through the choices we make every day. <p><p> Vividly recounting her personal experiences and those of her family, Benjamin shows how seemingly minor decisions and habits could spread virally and have exponentially positive effects. She recounts her father’s premature death, illuminating the devastating impact of the chronic stress of racism, but she also introduces us to community organizers who are fostering mutual aid and collective healing. Through her brother’s experience with the criminal justice system, we see the trauma caused by policing practices and mass imprisonment, but we also witness family members finding strength as they come together to demand justice for their loved ones. And while her own challenges as a young mother reveal the vast inequities of our healthcare system, Benjamin also describes how the support of doulas and midwives can keep Black mothers and babies alive and well. <p><p> Born of a stubborn hopefulness, Viral Justice offers a passionate, inspiring, and practical vision of how small changes can add up to large ones, transforming our relationships and communities and helping us build a more just and joyful world.
Viral Loop: The Power Of Pass-it-on
by Adam PenenbergYou read a book, you recommend it to a friend. That friend tells another friend. And another... until the book becomes this year's word-of-mouth sensation. This is the first to analyze the power of the 'pass-it-on' phenomenon, introducing us to the architects of the mightily efficient, money-spinning model known as the Viral Loop - the secret behind some of the most successful businesses in recent history. Outfits such as Google, eBay, Flickr and Facebook all employ the model at their core; all have seen their stock valuations skyrocket within years of forming. The genius lies in the model's reliance on replication: what's the point of using Facebook if none of your friends can see your profile, or using Flickr if you can't share your photos? Where's the joy in posting a video on YouTube if no one watches it? In creating a viral product that people want, need and desire, growth can, and will, take care of itself. Find out why the Loop will catch us all up, sooner rather than later...
Viral Parenting: A Guide to Setting Boundaries, Building Trust, and Raising Responsible Kids in an Online World
by Mindy McKnightMindy McKnight, YouTube's favorite mom, shares the tools parents need to keep kids safe in their online lives--and shows how to create stronger family relationships as they do. A cross between Jen Hatmaker and Rosalind Wiseman, VIRAL PARENTING is a guide to raising responsible, safe, and communicative kids in the digital world. Mindy shares practical tools for having honest conversations with kids of all ages about privacy, bullying, respectfulness, and family time, while emphasizing the importance of trust and open communication. These strategies are timeless--whether applied to texting, snapping, Facebooking, kiking, or whatever social media platforms await us in the future, this book is ultimately about teaching children about personal responsibility and safety. Mindy shares practical tools for creating family rules for kids of all ages about privacy, bullying, respectfulness, and family time, while emphasizing the importance of trust and open communication. Using family contracts, guided conversations, device checks, and respectful but firm oversight, the McKnights have raised a close knit family and navigated the complexity of being world-wide internet celebrities with grace. McKnight will show any parent of any child or teen how that's done--setting non-negotiable guidelines and offering a savvy perspective toward privacy that audience have been begging for.
The Viral Politics of Covid-19: Nature, Home, and Planetary Health (Biolegalities)
by Vanessa Lemm Miguel VatterThis book critically examines the COVID-19 pandemic and its legal and biological governance using a multidisciplinary approach. The perspectives reflected in this volume investigate the imbrications between technosphere and biosphere at social, economic, and political levels. The biolegal dimensions of our evolving understanding of “home” are analysed as the common thread linking the problem of zoonotic diseases and planetary health with that of geopolitics, biosecurity, bioeconomics and biophilosophies of the plant-animal-human interface. In doing so, the contributions collectively highlight the complexities, challenges, and opportunities for humanity, opening new perspectives on how to inhabit our shared planet. This volume will broadly appeal to scholars and students in anthropology, cultural and media studies, history, philosophy, political science and public health, sociology and science and technology studies.
Viral Sovereignty and the Political Economy of Pandemics: What Explains How Countries Deal with Outbreaks? (Europa International Perspectives)
by Sophal EarOver the past few decades a number of emerging infectious diseases (EIDs) have disrupted societies throughout the world, including HIV, Ebola, H5N1 (or ‘‘avian flu’’) and SARS, and of course the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) which spread worldwide to become a global pandemic. As well as EIDs, countries and regions also contend with endemic diseases, such as malaria. There are many factors that have contributed to the rise in, and spread of, EIDs and other diseases, including overpopulation, rapid urbanization, environmental degradation, and antibiotic resistance. Political and cultural responses to disease can greatly affect their spread. The global community needs to defend itself against disease threats: one weak link is enough to start a chain reaction that results in a global pandemic such as COVID-19. Some states take a nationalistic approach towards combating disease; however, international cooperation and meaningful ‘‘viral sovereignty’’—empowering countries to create effective health institutions and surveillance systems in order to contain disease—must be considered. This volume, with a focus on Southeast Asia, Africa and North America, considers the intersection between disease, politics, science, and culture in the global battle against pandemics, making use of case studies and interviews to examine the ways in which governments and regions handle outbreaks and pandemics.
Viral World: Global Relations During the COVID-19 Pandemic (The COVID-19 Pandemic Series)
by Long T. BuiThis book argues that the catastrophe of COVID-19 provided a momentous time for groups, institutions, and states to reassess their worldviews and relationship to the entire world. Following multiple case studies across dozens of countries throughout the course of the pandemic, this book is a timely contribution to cultural knowledge about the pandemic and the viral politics at the heart of it. Mapping the various forms of global consciousness and connectivity engendered by the crisis, the book offers the framework of "viral worlding," defined as viral forms of relationality, becoming, and communication. It demonstrates how worlding or world-making processes accelerated with the novel coronavirus. New emergent forms of being global "went viral" to address conditions of inequality as well as forge possibilities for societal transformation. Considering the tumult wrought by the pandemic, Bui analyzes progressive movements for democracy, abolition, feminism, environmentalism, and socialism against the world-shattering forces of capitalism, authoritarianism, racism, and militarism. Focusing on ways the pandemic disproportionately impacted marginalized communities, particularly in the Global South, this book juxtaposes the closing of their lifeworlds and social worlds by hegemonic global actors with increased collective demands for freedom, mobility, and justice by vulnerable people. The breadth and depth of the book thus provides students, scholars, and general readers with critical insights to understanding the world(s) of COVID-19 and collective efforts to build better new ones.
Viren in allen Dimensionen: Wie ein Informationscode Viren, Software und Mikroorganismen steuert
by Rafael BallMikroorganismen, Viren und Computerprogramme codieren alle Informationen, die erforderlich sind, sich selbst zu vermehren und verbreiten. Dabei sind sich diese Mechanismen in der belebten Welt, in der Welt der Viren und sogar in der Welt der technischen Systeme verblüffend ähnlich. Das Buch zeigt auf, wie groß die Parallelen dieser verschiedenen belebten und unbelebten replizierenden Systeme sind und worauf sie basieren. Der Ausflug führt ebenso in die faszinierende Welt der Genetik, zur Frage, was Leben definiert und in die Programmierung von Software, die sich selbständig vervielfacht. Schließlich wird daraus die Frage abgeleitet, ob und inwieweit solche sich selbst replizierenden technischen Systeme genauso gefährlich werden können wie infektiöse Viren bei der Auslösung von Pandemien, wie etwa der Corona-Pandemie im Jahr 2020.
The Virgin Vote: How Young Americans Made Democracy Social, Politics Personal, and Voting Popular in the Nineteenth Century
by Jon GrinspanThere was a time when young people were the most passionate participants in American democracy. In the second half of the nineteenth century--as voter turnout reached unprecedented peaks--young people led the way, hollering, fighting, and flirting at massive midnight rallies. Parents trained their children to be "violent little partisans," while politicians lobbied twenty-one-year-olds for their "virgin votes"--the first ballot cast upon reaching adulthood. In schoolhouses, saloons, and squares, young men and women proved that democracy is social and politics is personal, earning their adulthood by participating in public life. Drawing on hundreds of diaries and letters of diverse young Americans--from barmaids to belles, sharecroppers to cowboys--this book explores how exuberant young people and scheming party bosses relied on each other from the 1840s to the turn of the twentieth century. It also explains why this era ended so dramatically and asks if aspects of that strange period might be useful today. In a vivid evocation of this formative but forgotten world, Jon Grinspan recalls a time when struggling young citizens found identity and maturity in democracy.
Virginity Lost: An Intimate Portrait of First Sexual Experiences
by Laura CarpenterAn intimate analysis of the first timeNervous, inexperienced, confused. For most, losing your virginity is one of life's most significant moments, always to be remembered. Of course, experiences vary, but Laura Carpenter asks: Is there an ideal way to lose it? What would constitute a “positive” experience? What often compels the big step? And, further, what does “going all the way” really mean for young gays and lesbians?In this first comprehensive study of virginity loss, Carpenter teases out the complexities of all things virgin by drawing on interviews with both young men and women who are straight, gay or bisexual. Virginity Lost offers a rare window into one of life's most intimate and significant sexual moments. The stories here are frank, poignant and fascinating as Carpenter presents an array of experiences that run the gamut from triumphant to devastating.Importantly, Carpenter argues that one's experience of virginity loss can have a powerful impact on one's later sexual experiences. Especially at a time of increased debate about sexual abstinence versus safe sex education in public schools, this important volume will provide essential information about the sex lives of young people.
The Virtual (Key Ideas)
by Rob ShieldsThis book looks at the origins and the many contemporary meanings of the virtual. Rob Shields shows how the construction of virtual worlds has a long history. He examines the many forms of faith and hysteria that have surrounded computer technologies in recent years. Moving beyond the technologies themselves he shows how the virtual plays a role in our daily lives at every level. The virtual is also an essential concept needed to manage innovation and risk. It is real but not actual, ideal but not abstract. The virtual, he argues, has become one of the key organizing principles of contemporary society in the public realms of politics, business and consumption as well as in our private lives.
Virtual Activism: Sexuality, the Internet, and a Social Movement in Singapore (Anthropological Horizons)
by Robert PhillipsIn Virtual Activism: Sexuality, the Internet, and a Social Movement in Singapore, cultural anthropologist Robert Phillips provides a detailed, yet accessible, ethnographic case study that looks at the changes in LGBT activism in Singapore in the period 1993-2019. Based on extensive fieldwork conducted with activist organizations and individuals, Phillips illustrates key theoretical ideas – including illiberal pragmatics and neoliberal homonormativity – that, in combination with the introduction of the Internet, have shaped the manner by which LGBT Singaporeans are framing and subsequently claiming rights. Phillips argues that the activism engaged in by LGBT Singaporeans for governmental and societal recognition is in many respects virtual. His analysis documents how the actions of activists have resulted in some noteworthy changes in the lives of LGBT Singaporeans, but nothing as grand as some would have hoped, thus indexing the "not quite" aspect of the virtual. Yet, Virtual Activism also demonstrates how these actions have encouraged LGBT Singaporeans to fight even harder for their rights, signalling the "possibilities" that the virtual holds.
Virtual, Augmented and Mixed Reality: 16th International Conference, VAMR 2024, Held as Part of the 26th HCI International Conference, HCII 2024, Washington, DC, USA, June 29 – July 4, 2024, Proceedings, Part I (Lecture Notes in Computer Science #14706)
by Gino Fragomeni Jessie Y. C. ChenThis three-volume set LNCS 14706-14708 constitutes the refereed proceedings of the 16th International Conference on Virtual, Augmented and Mixed Reality, VAMR 2024, held as part of the 26th International Conference, HCI International 2024, in Washington, DC, USA, during June 29 – July 4, 2024. The total of 1271 papers and 309 posters included in the HCII 2024 proceedings was carefully reviewed and selected from 5108 submissions. The VAMR 2024 proceedings were organized in the following topical sections: Part I: : Perception, Interaction and Design; User Experience and Evaluation. Part II: Immersive Collaboration and Environment Design; Sensory, Tangible and Embodied Interaction in VAMR. Part III: Immersive Education and Learning; VAMR Applications and Development.
Virtual, Augmented and Mixed Reality: 16th International Conference, VAMR 2024, Held as Part of the 26th HCI International Conference, HCII 2024, Washington, DC, USA, June 29 – July 4, 2024, Proceedings, Part III (Lecture Notes in Computer Science #14708)
by Gino Fragomeni Jessie Y. C. ChenThis three-volume set LNCS 14706-14708 constitutes the refereed proceedings of the 16th International Conference on Virtual, Augmented and Mixed Reality, VAMR 2024, held as part of the 26th International Conference, HCI International 2024, in Washington, DC, USA, during June 29 – July 4, 2024. The total of 1271 papers and 309 posters included in the HCII 2024 proceedings was carefully reviewed and selected from 5108 submissions. The VAMR 2024 proceedings were organized in the following topical sections: Part I: : Perception, Interaction and Design; User Experience and Evaluation. Part II: Immersive Collaboration and Environment Design; Sensory, Tangible and Embodied Interaction in VAMR. Part III: Immersive Education and Learning; VAMR Applications and Development.
Virtual, Augmented and Mixed Reality: 16th International Conference, VAMR 2024, Held as Part of the 26th HCI International Conference, HCII 2024, Washington, DC, USA, June 29 – July 4, 2024, Proceedings, Part II (Lecture Notes in Computer Science #14707)
by Gino Fragomeni Jessie Y. C. ChenThis three-volume set LNCS 14706-14708 constitutes the refereed proceedings of the 16th International Conference on Virtual, Augmented and Mixed Reality, VAMR 2024, held as part of the 26th International Conference, HCI International 2024, in Washington, DC, USA, during June 29 – July 4, 2024. The total of 1271 papers and 309 posters included in the HCII 2024 proceedings was carefully reviewed and selected from 5108 submissions. The VAMR 2024 proceedings were organized in the following topical sections: Part I: : Perception, Interaction and Design; User Experience and Evaluation. Part II: Immersive Collaboration and Environment Design; Sensory, Tangible and Embodied Interaction in VAMR. Part III: Immersive Education and Learning; VAMR Applications and Development.
Virtual Coaching to Improve Group Relationships: Process Consultation Reimagined
by William J. Rothwell and Cho Hyun ParkProcess consultation, invented by Edgar Schein, is both a skill and an organization development change effort. As a skill, process consultation means the ability to observe and provide feedback about small group dynamics to a work group about how well group members interact and how to improve that interaction. Just as facilitators devote their time to (in one word) asking, process consultants devote their time to (in one word) watching—at an expert level. As a change effort, process consultation is a concerted effort to help members of a group work together more effectively. For that reason, the word "process" in this context should be interpreted to mean "interpersonal interaction in small groups." Historically, process consultation has focused attention on face-to-face groups and their group dynamics. But times are changing. More work is done online or in blended (online and onsite) groups than face-to-face alone. A 2017 survey of over 25,000 workers in 12 countries revealed that 62% of global workers are now working flexibly—with some residential work and some virtual work. The same survey found that workers believe that flexible work arrangements make them more productive and that 48% of survey respondents reported that their virtual interactions include representatives of other cultures. It is true that, for workers who can discipline themselves and manage distractions at home, virtual work can be more productive when commuting time is eliminated and workplace distractions are minimized. Virtual work has the advantage of reducing the need for childcare, slashing work wardrobe costs, and cutting unproductive, stressful commuting time. Despite how modes of working together have changed over the years—ranging from face-to-face to some degree of virtual (video conference, audio conference, print-only collaboration, and many blended combinations)—and the growing need for finding ways to help people work together more effectively, there has been no practical guideline of process consultation in a virtual or mixed work setting since Schein’s process consultation initially focused on group dynamics in face-to-face settings. Therefore, this book aims to provide practical approaches to process consultation, helping group members discover more effective ways of working together in blended virtual/residential and cross-cultural settings. Essentially, this book provides a practical, how-to guide for virtual coaching, using step-by-step procedural approaches, cases, and helpful platforms/technologies and tools. It also provides information about how to use technology to support the process of improving virtual or mixed group relationship.
Virtual Collaboration (HBR 20-Minute Manager Series)
by Harvard Business ReviewWorking remotely gives you flexibility and independence. But it can pose challenges when you need to team up with colleagues or coworkers. Virtual Collaboration covers the basics of working productively-and collaboratively-from anywhere. You'll learn to: Communicate clearly over a variety of media Bond with colleagues across the wires Keep others-and yourself-accountable Avoid and mitigate tech glitchesDon't have much time? Get up to speed fast on the most essential business skills with HBR's 20-Minute Manager series. Whether you need a crash course or a brief refresher, each book in the series is a concise, practical primer that will help you brush up on a key management topic. Advice you can quickly read and apply, for ambitious professionals and aspiring executives-from the most trusted source in business. Also available as an ebook.
The Virtual Couch: COVID-19 through a Psychoanalytic Lens
by Sonali JainThis book is one of the first systematic examinations on the looming mental health crisis emerging from the COVID-19 pandemic from a psychoanalytic perspective. Bringing together practising therapists from Asia and Europe, this book: • analyses themes like anxiety, depression, sexuality, loss and death through clinical vignettes • highlights how children, adolescents and adults have been responding to the pandemic • explores how personal and collective trauma are mourned, remembered, repeated and worked through • studies deep-seated prejudices and fears • focuses on how the pandemic has stimulated exceptional manifestations of human solidarity and creativity Comprehensive and practical, this book will be an essential guide for mental health professionals, counsellors, therapists and medical doctors treating psychological trauma.
The Virtual Future
by William Sims BainbridgeThe newest communication technologies are profoundly changing the world's politics, economies, and cultures, but the specific implications of online game worlds remain mysterious. The Virtual Future employs theories and methods from social science to explore nine very different virtual futures: The Matrix Online, Tabula Rasa, Anarchy Online, Entropia Universe, Star Trek Online, EVE Online, Star Wars Galaxies, World of Warcraft: Burning Crusade, and The Chronicles of Riddick. Each presents a different picture of how technology and society could evolve in coming centuries, but one theme runs through all of them, the attempt to escape the Earth and seek new destinies among the stars. Four decades after the last trip to the moon, a new conception of spaceflight is emerging. Rather than rockets shooting humans across vast physical distances to sterile rocks that lack the resources to sustain life, perhaps robot space probes and orbiting telescopes will glean information about the universe, that humans can then experience inside computer-generated environments much closer to home. All nine of these fantastically rich multiplayer masterpieces have shown myriads of people that really radical alternatives to contemporary society could exist, and has served as a laboratory for examining the consequences. Each is a prototype of new social forms, a utopian subculture, and a simulation of technologies that have yet to be invented. They draw upon several different traditions of science fiction and academic philosophy, and they were created in several nations. By comparing these nine role-playing fantasies, we can better consider what kind of world we want to inhabit in the real future.
Virtual Globalization: Virtual Spaces/Tourist Spaces (Routledge Advances in Sociology #1)
by David HolmesThis book examines the interrelationship between telecommunications and tourism in shaping the nature of space, place and the urban at the end of the twentieth century. They discuss how these agents are instrumental in the production of homogenous world-spaces, and how these, in turn, presuppose new kinds of political and cultural identity. This work will be of essential interest to scholars and students in the fields of sociology, geography, cultural studies and media studies.
Virtual Influencers: Identity and Digitality in the Age of Multiple Realities (Routledge Studies in New Media and Cyberculture)
by Esperanza MiyakeThis book identifies the converging socio- cultural, economic, and technological conditions that have shaped, informed, and realised the identity of the contemporary virtual influencer, situating them at the intersection of social media, consumer culture, Artificial Intelligence (AI), and digital technologies.Through a critical analysis of virtual influencers and related media practices and discourses in an international context, each chapter investigates different themes relating to digitality and identity: virtual place and nationhood; virtual emotions and intimacy; im/ materialities of virtual everyday life; the biopolitics of virtual human-production; the necropolitics of pandemic virtuality; transmedial and mimetic virtualities; and the political economy of virtual influencers. The book argues that the virtual influencer represents the various ways in which contemporary identities have increasingly become naturalised with questions of virtuality, mediated by digital technologies across multiple realities.From practices relating to AI- driven, invasive data profiling needed for virtual influencer production to problematic online practices such as buying digital skin colour, the author examines how the virtual influencer’s aesthetic, social, and economic value obfuscates some of the darker aspects of their role as an extractivist technology of virtuality: one which regulates, oppresses, and/ or classifies bodies and datafied bodies that serve the visual, (bio)political, and digital economies of virtual capitalism. In the process, the book simultaneously offers a critique of the virtual influencer as a representational figure existing across multiple digital platforms, spaces, and times, and of how they may challenge, complicate, and reinforce normative ideologies surrounding gender, race, class, sexuality, age, and ableism. As such, the book sheds light on some of the more troubling realities of the virtual influencer’s existence, inasmuch as it celebrates their transformational potential, exploring the implications of both within an increasingly AI- driven, digital culture, society, and economy.Drawing from a wide range of disciplines, this book will appeal to scholars, researchers, and students working in the area(s) of: Popular Culture and Media; Internet, Digital and Social Media Studies; Data justice and Governance; Japanese Media Studies; Celebrity Studies; Fan Studies; Marketing and Consumer Studies; Sociology; Human– Computer Studies; and AI and Technology Studies.
Virtual Leadership: Practical Strategies for Getting the Best Out of Virtual Work and Virtual Teams
by Penny PullanThe future of work is virtual, with dispersed teams, telecommuting, remote working and virtual meetings becoming the norm in many sectors and industries around the world. At its best, virtual working can be productive and creative, tapping into the best people wherever they are and bringing skills and experience together efficiently and at low cost. But it can also lead to isolated and disengaged workers, ineffective communication, and uncoordinated and even counter-productive activity. Virtual Leadership discusses how leading a virtual team in our fast-paced world requires a new set of skills and a facilitative leadership approach.Virtual Leadership provides practical strategies, tools and solutions for the key issues involved in managing at a distance. How can I provide leadership, motivation and vision through virtual channels? How do I make virtual meetings effective, engaging and productive, and ensure actions are followed through? How do I create engaged and cohesive teams across distance, cultures and languages? How do I stop virtual team members silently checking out, distracted by local challenges and offline issues? With diverse case studies and examples, this is the essential guide to making a difference as a leader of virtual work.
Virtual Leadership: Practical Strategies for Success with Remote or Hybrid Work and Teams
by Penny PullanRemote working and virtual business practices are now embedded in companies across all industries. Learn the best practices and skills needed to effectively manage your team with this guide to virtual leadership. Virtual Leadership offers straightforward and proven methods for developing strategies to lead virtual teams. This guide for the modern leader explains how to optimize productivity and drive engagement by addressing common challenges, such as creating cohesive teams, working across time zones and cultures and handling offline distractions. Clear guidance is offered on how to lead in and outside of meetings to ensure that those working remotely are effectively steered.The fully revised second edition provides key information on the latest developments in virtual leadership and how to lead team members adopting a hybrid working approach (partly virtual but not entirely) in detail. New cases studies from education, community, healthcare and government also feature to highlight insights that can be taken from other fields. Leading virtual teams requires a new set of skills and a facilitative leadership approach, Virtual Leadership is here to help.
Virtual Learning (Routledge Revivals)
by John P CuthellThis title was first published in 2001: Since the early 1980s, successive governments have realized the importance of computers and computing and made significant investment in schools. The most recent initiative, the National Grid for Learning, seeks to place online learning facilities at the heart of the curriculum for both teachers and students, and use it as a vehicle for lifelong learning. The impact of ICT in the classroom transforms management, organization and conventional pedagogic approaches. However, many teachers still struggle with ICT in the classroom. Since the mid-1990s, a significant number of students have gained access to a PC at home. They ways in which they have learnt to use machines and the uses to which they are put, are shaped by input from peers and personal experience, other than teachers. The education systems struggle to meet the demands and expectations of these young people and those without technology at home are doubly disadvanted if their schools and teachers cannot compensate. In this research, the author examines patters of computer ownership and use among young people, as well as teacher use and teacher attitudes. The results demonstrate the disparity between student computer ownership and use, and that of their teachers, with profound implications for the education system as a whole.
Virtual Learning: Insights and Perspectives
by Ravi Inder Singh Pooja SikkaThis book brings together the research work conducted by renowned academics and practitioners on critical and immensely important issues of virtual learning. It provides innovative ideas and empirical findings on the subject. The sixteen chapters by established and young scholars from all over the country offer strong theoretical and analytical discussion, and examine a wide range of issues confronting the education sector in India in general and the higher education sector in particular. The book seeks to address pertinent issues relating to virtual learning like emerging scenario with respect to required changes in pedagogy used in higher education learning, perceptions of learners about online mode of learning, problems and challenges in virtual learning, paradigm shifts in higher education, designing of new learning strategies for online mode of learning and about the role virtual learning plays in inclusive growth. The scholarly discussion of the book will serve as an excellent vade mecum for readers who want to understand the various dimensions of virtual learning, specifically those that emerged during the Covid-19 Pandemic period, and will provide opportunities to researchers to use it as reference to pursue research in the field of virtual learning.