ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses the technical functionality to create a Virtual Classroom to support distance education and evaluates the effectiveness of this approach to remote education. The actual number of speech and hearing impaired may be even more than that provided by the NSSO because the survey is conducted by untrained persons and the survey includes persons above the age of four years. Even if the conservative estimate of NSSO is taken as the prevalence of speech and hearing problems, it still means that each speech and hearing professional in India will have to serve about 8,000 persons every year. Graduate and postgraduate professionals in speech and hearing are involved in the detailed diagnosis and finer aspects of the rehabilitation of people with communication disorders. Since it is mostly delivered through asynchronous communication methods, it provides thin scope for interaction among the learners as well as between the learner and the instructor.
