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Interactive
Distance
Learning by
Judah
Freed The
biggest barrier to the success of educational media
has been the difficulties of students interacting
effectively with instructors, an ability inherent
in the live classroom. Answering the need, Coast
College set a precedent in the Seventies by buying
15 answering machines to record students' messages
for telecourse instructors, who replied in a day or
so. Answering machines averaged about $900 each
back then, so this was a big investment.
Consequently, the use of answering machines became
standard in telecourse design. In the early Nineties,
U.S. universities started giving students access to
the Internet, the decentralized computer network
developed during the Cold War that linked military
and government offices with university research
centers. Once the Internet was opened to the
public, the use of email became so common among
students and instructors that voicemail was demoted
to secondary status. The explosive growth of
the Internet, in fact, changed the essential
character of delivering educational content to
remote students. The terms "distance learning" and
"telematics" were coined to describe the process,
which no longer relies on the TV. The Internet is
becoming the medium of choice for educators, since
it provides all the elements vital for distance
learning: Yet the Internet has
disadvantages when compared to television. The main
problem is bandwidth. Why wait and wait to download
a low-resolution video clip at 56 kilobits per
second (56k) when TV can deliver a full program in
living color? The latest trend has been to create
"multiple media" distance learning systems, using
curricula from both the television and computer.
Given the interactive TV
technologies developed in the early Nineties but
shelved until the network matured into digital,
static one-way educational TV may soon be obsolete.
Educators prefer the PC over the PC since the
interactive nature of computers is more dynamic,
more conducive to learning. Usage of the Internet
will accelerate as schools, businesses and homes
adopt high-speed cable modems, which operate at 10
to 50 megabits (MB) per second, far faster than
plain old telephone lines can deliver. The next generation of
digital cable, satellite and wireless interactive
TV networks will carry video, text, graphics, and
voice communication even faster. Once the capacity
of interactive TV is seen in the open marketplace
(from video-on-demand to highly personalized
programming) the same enthusiasm we now see for the
Internet likely will transfer to interactive TV.
Demonstrating the
possibilities are state-of-the-art facilities
constructed for "teaching the teachers" about
distance learning. A leading example in Europe is
the facility constructed by University College
Dublin under their "Blueprint for Interactive
Classrooms" (BIC). UCD built an interactive
classroom for teaching distant learners through
various audiovisual technologies, including the
Internet, videoconferencing and interactive
television. The top examples in North
America are the advanced teacher training centers
built by TCI in Denver and Washington DC, which TCI
recently donated to Cable in the Classroom. Each
classroom has an interoperable PC or Mac on every
desktop, linked to a big screen in front of the
room. Teachers can display on the main screen
whatever they choose from whatever source they
choose, be that source their computer, a student's
computer, the World Wide Web, digital video stored
on a server, or any program from a pay TV channel.
Both the TCI and the BIC
classrooms are equipped with robotic cameras so
activities in that space may be shared with
students sitting in remote classrooms or their
homes. A classroom without walls. Computer-based interactive
distance learning also is being used in the
business sector for staff training and development.
For instance, Business telecourse giant Video Arts
(co-founded by Monty Python veteran John
Cleese) created a multimedia division producing
CD-ROMs, and they're now moving into
"self-learning" packages for delivery over the
Internet. Whether the target markets is educational
institutions, organizations, or the growing
audience of folks at home committed to lifelong
learning, the educational media business will keep
growing. Beyond the Internet, with
the rollout of digital services by cable, satellite
and wireless companies, the interactive TV services
optimistically heralded in the early Nineties are
finally being deployed in the field. The
terrestrial broadcasters are close behind with
HDTV. As we enter the new
millennium, all of these media innovations, and the
public's response to these innovations, are
advancing distance learning from being a tiny niche
educational activity into being the overarching
design model now guiding education agendas
worldwide Few of us can see the
future like the witches of Endor, but a glimpse
down the road ahead helps us put the history of
educational media into its wider
context. The world advances day by
day into an increasingly interdependent,
information-based, knowledge-driven economy. Those
who understand interactive media, who can use the
new media to learn whatever they want and need to
learn, are the best prepared to take advantage of
the media systems emerging over the next few
decades. Those lacking deep
media literacy may
be left behind. Knowledge is power in any
society, but in the new knowledge economy,
ignorance is bondage. In an era when the democratic
ideals of Burke and Jefferson stand their best
chance of actualization since the dawn of human
history, how do we proceed from here? The best way to develop
markets for educational media products is to do the
groundwork now to develop a large base of educated
people who want and need educational content.
Individuals and companies that invest in the
educational media marketplace today will be best
positioned to reap fiscal rewards tomorrow.
For
More Information on Distance Learning: (c)
1998-2009
by
Judah Ken
Freed.
Based on the book, Financial
Opportunities in Educational
Television.
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